The Pied Piper of Hamelburg
by konarciq
Summary: TOW-fanfic, post-A4. Klink's got word that Hamelburg will be destroyed tonight in Hitler's scorched earth-policy. But how can they get out with the valley cut off? Still, not everyone wants to leave, and Carter's love for animals is complicating things.
1. Chapter 1

_**Warning!**_

_This is a T__heater of War fanfic.  
Unless you have read Theater of War Acts 1-4, it´s no idea reading this story,  
for I´m picking up where Eva – so far – has left off. _

_For those of you who have read TOW:  
I just want to tell you a story of love and war. And peace.  
I do not claim to be equally historically accurate the way we are used to in Eva´s work.  
In some cases, I even deliberately ignored her knowledge of ww2-reality,  
and created my own setting.  
Therefore, this story should be regarded for what it is: fiction._

_A complementary advice:  
It might be a good idea to keep an eye on the story Chameleon Fever as well;  
at least until the point where you´ll find out Oskar Danzig´s true identity.  
Otherwise you are going to be in for a major, pretty much unexplained character shock  
by the time we´ll get to chapter 5 of_

_._

**THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELBURG**

_._

_A Theater of War fanfic_

_written and published with Eva Seifert´s permission_

_._

_._

"Colonel Hogan, I think we have a problem."

Hogan raised his eyebrows at the approaching Kommandant.

"I have just been speaking to one of my contacts in Berlin. Apparently, the Führer is serious about his scorched earth policy: he is ordering bombing-raids all over the country hoping the Allies won´t bother to take over any scorched part of dirt."

"Sounds like he´s getting desperate," Hogan observed.

"Yes. But the problem is: Hamelburg is one of tonight´s targets."

Hogan winced. "Hamelburg?! What could possibly interest him in a burnt down and nearly deserted little country-town? With not even any industrial activity left?!"

Klink was silent.

"His brains are even more scrambled than I thought!" Hogan muttered. "So what do we do now? Locked up in this valley, surrounded by a Nazi panzer division on one side and an Allied army closing in on the other...?"

"Yes." Klink sighed. "It seems I have outsmarted myself; I didn´t consider anyone would be foolish enough to have a few bombing-raids here with the sole purpose of destroying anything that may be left." He sighed. "But there is a way out. But we´ll have to act quickly."

Hogan nodded. "What do you want me to do?"

Funny, so natural it seemed to leave the initiative and the command to this man he once openly ridiculed and despised. But it felt right. Wilhelm Klink knew what he was doing.

"Get the prisoners ready to evacuate. Pass out a Red Cross package to each man; the rest we´ll save for the townspeople, and we´ll leave behind what is left. The sick will have to be carried on stretchers, for our way out is not an easy one. Further I´d like you to gather a couple of dozen men to help with the evacuation of the town´s hospital."

Hogan nodded. "We´ll do."

"I´ll go into town now to get things organized there," Klink continued. "And I´d like you and a few of your men to join me there as soon as you can be missed here. I was hoping to entrust the evacuation of the orphanage to you."

Hogan frowned. "The orphanage? But we´re not even supposed to come into town!"

Klink sighed. "I know. But I can´t do everything on my own. Civilians in a country-town tend to be more difficult to inform and get organized than a camp of soldiers. I´m hoping the children will be more willing to accept you for who you are, without linking you to the likes of Randall."

"Okay. What time do you want us to be ready? And where do we go?"

"We´ll have to be out of the area no later than sunset." Klink checked his watch. "Shall we say 3.30 at the south end of the Hamelburg bridge?"

That would give them less than three hours.

Hogan nodded. "Roger." It could be done, if they worked smoothly and efficiently.

"Allright. See you in town then," Klink said before he hurried off to the motorpool.

Hogan quickly gathered his captains, and the five men entered his office in barracks 2 before Klink had turned out of the main gate.

Hogan explained in a few lines what he had just heard from Klink. He then issued his orders: "Mitchell, you gather fifty able-bodied men to help with the evacuation of the town´s hospital. Tell them to take whatever keepsakes and valuables they can´t do without, for they won´t be coming back here. But they´ll have to have their hands free for the carrying of the patients, so they can´t take any bulky stuff or bags. And that goes for the entire camp as a matter of fact. You take one of the trucks and leave for the hospital as soon as possible.

"Warren, I want you to team up with Sergeant Wilson and his men to organize the evacuation of the infirmary. They can be brought down to the bridge in trucks, but you´ll need make-shift stretchers and people to carry them.

"Witton, you´re in charge of the camp while I´m gone. You will oversee the men´s evacuation and the passing out of the Red Cross packages. The barracks´ leaders can each take responsibility for their own men; I entrust you with getting things done orderly. The Germans in the camp will also be your responsibility. Captain Gruber can act as their leader; I want to see him, too, when I´ll inform the barracks´ leaders.

"Martin, you´re going to be in charge of our prisoners. They will be the last to leave the camp. Make sure they are properly cuffed, and assign two guards to each of them. I don´t want any bloodshed, but you have my permission to knock them out if they give you any trouble. So you might want to pick a few men who are not afraid of giving a right hook."

Nods all around.

"Any questions?"

"Can we send groups down to the bridge before the assigned time?" Witton wanted to know. "Otherwise it will be like rush hour in downtown New York when they´re all leaving together."

"Send groups off as soon as they´re ready," Hogan confirmed. "They´ll just have to wait by the bridge, for I don´t have a clue where Klink´s going to take us. Any other questions?"

The men shook their head.

"Fine. Get going then. I´ll announce the meeting of the barracks´ leaders right away."

With those words Hogan hurried off towards Klink´s office. The quickest way to get a message across was still through the loudspeaker system. So a few moments later his voice boomed over the camp: _"Message for all barracks´ leaders. Urgent meeting in the mess hall in five – repeat: five – minutes. Also: Captain Gruber of the former guards is requested to attend. All others are to go to their barracks to await instructions from their barracks´ leader. End of message."_

After having sent Hilda home to let her make her personal preparations for the evacuation, Hogan went over to the mess hall. The barracks´ leaders were already filing in, and even his own men were there. He called out to them.

"What is it, sir? You have other plans for us?" Newkirk enquired.

"Partly," Hogan nodded. "Kinch, you stay here at the meeting, so you´ll be able to pass on the situation to London as soon as may be. LeBeau, we´ll need your translation expertise. But you others – " he looked at Baker, Carter and Newkirk – "roam about the compound and make sure everyone is in their own barracks by the time I´m finished here. And it´s going to be a short meeting. The Germans, too, are to go to their barracks to await their orders."

"Right, sir," Newkirk responded, and the three men disappeared outside again.

Hogan kept his meeting short. Once again he informed his audience of the upcoming bombing-raid, and of Klink´s promise to get everyone out despite the fact that the entire area was sealed off.

"There is no need to panic," he told them. "All we have to do is get out of the valley before sunset. We can make it. I want you guys to inform your men about the situation and about what´s going to happen. Let them pack their things, but no more than they can carry in their pockets, for we´ll need lots of volunteers to carry those who can´t walk by themselves. We´re going to need people to help evacuate the hospital in town, as well as the sick and wounded here in camp. We´ll also need guards to keep tabs on Randall and his men. Volunteers for guard duty can report to Captain Martin; for helping out the sick either to Captain Mitchell or Captain Warren. I myself will have to go into Hamelburg to help evacuate the town, so Captain Witton is in charge of the camp in my absence. He will also see to it that the remaining Red Cross packages will be handed out. Any questions?"

Captain Gruber raised his hand – rather hesitantly. He didn´t seem to feel quite at ease in this company.

"Yes? Captain Gruber?" Hogan encouraged him.

"Are we... I mean, I suppose you want me to take care of the Germans in the camp?"

"Yes, captain." Hogan nodded. "We´re all in this together. I entrust your old command to you."

There were no more questions, so Hogan dismissed the men, telling them to go straight to their barracks to inform their men. "They should be waiting for you there."

xxx

Indeed: the compound lay deserted when they filed out the door.

"Kinch." Hogan drew his sergeant next to him as they walked towards the barracks. "Get on the radio to London and tell them what´s happening here. Ask them to have the allied armies in the neighbourhood to be on the look-out for 2500 POW´s plus a couple of hundred evacuees. Probably including the Stage. For I don´t have a clue where Klink is taking us, and I don´t want them to start shooting at us. Tell them we´re closing down the camp; this is going to be your last message. When you´re done, I want you to set charges in the entire tunnel system. We´re going to bring the whole thing down, just in case. I´ll send in a couple of guys to help you. And to tie things up, I would appreciate it if you´d volunteer to help Martin taking care of Randall and the lot."

Kinch grinned. "Nothing I´d like better."

"Me too," LeBeau chimed in. "One wrong move and..."

Hogan looked at him, on the brink of laughing out loud. Their little cockroach...? But then he recalled just how ruthless their little cockroach could be around people he hated and despised. So perhaps it was not such a bad idea having LeBeau there after all.

"Fine. You go tell Martin that he can count you and Kinch in once I´ve given my talk in the barracks," he agreed.

xxx

Kinch disappeared right into the tunnel once they entered the barracks. The other men gathered instantly around the table to find out what was going on.

"Right. Everyone here?"

"Yes sir," Baker confirmed.

"Good. Now listen carefully. Our beloved Scramblebrains is hoping the Allies won´t bother to conquer a piece of scorched earth. So he´s ordered bombing-raids to destroy the little that is left of his glorious Third Reich. And thanks to Klink´s contacts, we´ve been informed in time that the Hamelburg valley is on tonight´s schedule. Which means we have to get out of here in a few hours."

"But I thought the area was cut off? That no one could get in or out of here?" Newkirk asked with a puzzled frown.

"Yes, that´s true. But apparently Klink does know a way out anyway. So first of all I want you guys to get ready to evacuate. You won´t be able to bring any bags or something, so you can only take what fits in your pockets. You´ll be handed a Red Cross package, too. Make sure to stuff anything that´s ready to eat in your pockets. And make sure to bring all available canteens with water as well."

"Where are we going, colonel?" Garth asked.

"I don´t know. Klink is going to lead the way. Every barracks has to report to the south end of the Hamelburg bridge before 3.30 p.m."

Nods all around.

"Now I will have to go into town to help organize things at the orphanage. And I´m going to take a few men with me: Carter, Newkirk..." He hesitated. Would Baker be a wise choice? Who knows how these kids had been brainwashed by the Nazi propaganda about people from other races...? He couldn´t afford a riot now. There was no time.

Then his eye fell on Hammond. Sergeant Paul Hammond, a valuable guy, smart and calm, whose only reason for not being on Hogan´s first team was – exactly – that he had a wife and kid waiting for him back home. That´s why he – Hogan – hadn´t want to put him in any unnecessary danger. But Hammond had been a regular in their antics around the camp, where the maximum punishment one could get was a few weeks in the cooler. And of course he had a huge advantage for this mission: the experience with children Hogan himself totally lacked.

That clenched it: "And Hammond."

Hammond started in surprise.

"You three get ready real quick; I want to leave within fifteen minutes. The others may volunteer to either guard Randall and co – in that case you can report to Captain Martin – or to help out carrying the sick and wounded. For that, you can report to Captains Mitchell or Warren. The rest might be called upon to assist the elderly from town or something. So make sure you´ve got your hands free; don´t take more than what fits in your pockets! And whatever happens: make sure you report at the south end of the Hamelburg bridge no later than 3.30 today. Kinch will act as barracks´ leader in my absence. Any questions?"

Carter raised his hand. "Sir, what about Felix and Hasenpfeffer? I can carry Felix in my pocket, but a rabbit the size of Hasenpfeffer..."

"You could carry him under your hat," Newkirk quipped.

Hogan heaved a sigh. "You´d better set them free, Carter."

"What?! I can´t do that!" Carter exclaimed in shocked alarm. "With that bombing-raid due here tonight? They´ll get killed!"

"I´m sorry, Carter, but..."

"They´re my friends!" Carter protested vehemently. "I can´t leave them behind, knowing they´ll get bombed tonight!"

A sudden hand on his shoulder. "Don´t worry, Andrew. I´ll take care of Hasenpfeffer for you." It was Baker.

Carter eyed him between relief and suspicion. "You _promise_ you´ll take him with you?"

"I promise I will do everything in my power to save him from the bombing-raid and to restore him in your care at the bridge this afternoon," Baker pledged solemnly.

Hogan sighed in a smile. "Well, that´s settled then. Garth, Beauchamp, you two go off to collect our share of the Red Cross packages. The rest of you: get packed; we´re going home!"


	2. Chapter 2

Carter placed the old gonculator that served as Hasenpfeffer´s cage on his bunk and opened the top. Hasenpfeffer, always happy to get some attention, sat up immediately and nuzzled his hands.

"You take care now, boy," Carter whispered. "Richard is going to take care of you this afternoon, so you´ll behave yourself, allright? No running off, and no biting Rich either. Understood? Then you´ll be back with me before we know it." A final frizzing through his soft white and black fur, a kiss, a lick across his nose in return... "You be good now, buddy."

Baker came up behind him. "No worries, mate. I´ll take care of him. Back home I´ve had rabbits all my life."

Carter swallowed with difficulty. "Yes. Of course."

"Are you ready now?" Newkirk sounded impatient from the door.

A gulp from Carter. "Yes." But it was with a heavy heart that he left his beloved little friend and followed Newkirk outside.

But before they had climbed into the waiting truck, there was Kinch coming, bursting through the barracks´ door. "Colonel!"

Hogan, in the driver´s seat, looked up in surprise. "What is it, Kinch?"

"I´ve arranged with London that we´ll be carrying an American, an English and a French flag as a recognition sign. Is that allright with you, sir? After all, we wouldn´t want to give the Germans the satisfaction of destroying our flags, would we?"

Hogan nodded. "Fine with me. Do what you have to, Kinch. You´re in charge of the barracks now. Good luck!"

"Thanks, colonel. You too." And with that, he turned in search for LeBeau and the English private Parker, to help him take proper care of their practically sacred flags.

xxx

"We´d better say farewell to good old Stalag 13, guys," Hogan said as he turned onto the track leading to town.

"By tonight, it will be a gigantic crater," Newkirk predicted happily. "Well, good riddance, I say. I never could stand the place."

"Well, I do feel a bit sad," Carter objected. "After all, it has been sort of a home away from home."

"But a prison! Don´t tell me you´re going to miss the barbed wire fences! Or the delousing station!"

Hogan grinned. "To miss the delousing station, or the barbed wire! Now those are heavy misfortunes indeed!"

Hammond smiled at Newkirk´s baffled face.

"That´s not what I mean," Carter began hesitantly. "I mean..."

"I know what you mean, Carter. I feel about the same," Hogan admitted. "For no matter the circumstances, we´ve had a pretty good time there, too. Haven´t we?"

"And made lots of friends," Hammond added. "I don´t know about you guys, but I found it very instructive to live closely together with people from all over the world."

Hogan nodded, and Carter snickered: "Yeah, living together with Newkirk does broaden one´s views."

They all laughed as Newkirk hit Carter over the head. But Hammond explained: "I mean, if it hadn´t been for the war, chances of us meeting would have been marginal. Practically non existent. Before I was drafted, I don´t think I had ever met with people from North Dakota or Connecticut. Let alone England and France. Or Germany for that matter. All we live by down there in up-state Alabama are the caricatures we see in the papers."

"Well, don´t I fit that caricature?" Newkirk protested in mock offense.

Hammond laughed. "You do. Don´t worry, you are the exception. But generally speaking these years in the camp among so many nationalities have shown me that the differences between us are but skindeep: accents, views, food preferences. But our needs... our hopes and dreams are pretty much the same, no matter where we´re from."

"Even for the blacks," Hogan pointed out softly.

And Hammond nodded. Very slowly. "Yes." It was barely audible.

An awkward silence descended upon the four of them, while thoughts about Hammond´s first weeks in the camp came to their mind. He had arrived around the same time as Carter and Hogan himself, together with private Ben Garth who had been on the same crew with him. Hammond and Garth had never met before they went on that final disastrous mission, but Paul Hammond had taken an instant liking to the young black man. The result was that he sort of adopted the black private, and before Hogan had been aware of it, their relationship had developed into one comparable with a pet and its master. Them both being from the southern US – the only two in their barracks – had been the reason for them both to find this entirely normal, but the other guys had watched this development with feelings ranging from distaste to utter surprise. It had taken Hogan several private talks with both Hammond and Garth to make them understand that he regarded Garth as much as an independent human being as any other prisoner in the camp, and that he certainly encouraged the two of them to be friends, but only if they could treat each other as equals. It had taken a lot of adjusting for both of them, but witnessing the way Kinchloe was part of the group in the end had helped them to overcome their mutual awkwardness and they had learned to treat each other as equals. "A miracle of war," Hogan had called it with a satisfactory smile the first time Garth had stood up to Hammond, and Hammond accepting his denial.

It was Carter who broke the silence when they approached the outskirts of the town. "Colonel, what are we supposed to do here?"

"Help evacuate the orphanage," Hogan replied. "But I have to admit, I don´t know where it is situated."

"We´d better ask somebody then," Newkirk commented.

Hogan continued into town, and they perceived Klink talking to Bürgermeister Hauser and police chef Krüger in the remains of the Wilhelmsplatz. A lot of hustle and bustle was going on around them.

Klink excused himself with Hauser and Krüger when he saw the camptruck come to a halt across the street. "Everything organized back at the camp?"

Hogan nodded. "Yes sir. And Captain Mitchell will soon be joining you with a bunch of volunteers to help evacuate the hospital."

"Good."

"Things going allright here, too?" Hogan inquired.

"Yes. The people in town have been informed, and messengers have been sent out to the outlying farms and cottages. The orphanage staff has been notified, too, so they know you and your men are coming."

"Right." Hogan grinned. "One last detail though: where is that place?"

"The old rectory, behind the church." Klink frowned. "You didn´t know that?"

"Nope." Another disarming grin. "Orphanages aren´t the kind of places we used to blow up. Sorry."

Klink tried to hide his smile in a scowl, but didn´t quite succeed. "Well, get on with it."

"Just one last question. Where are we going?"

"A shortcut through the hills. Here." He took out a sketched map from his inside pocket. "You might as well take this. I want you to lead the way, and take the children first; we don´t want to endanger them any more than strictly necessary. It might be best if you assign one POW to each child, for the road we´ll be taking can be very dangerous at places. And you´d better get them started as soon as you get them at the bridge, and have the prisoners follow you, too. I´ll be coming with the last groups from town, to make sure no one will be left behind."

"But you _are_ coming, aren´t you? I´m not going to let you...!" Hogan started in worried indignation.

"Of course I´m coming." A thin smile. "After all I´ve been through, I have no intention of getting myself deliberately killed in a pointless bombing-raid."

A sigh of relief.

"Take care, Robert. I´ll see you across the hills tomorrow."

"Yes." Hogan grabbed Klink´s hand. "It may be the end tomorrow. So you take care, too. I don´t want to see it end without you."

A nod. "I will."

Klink moved away to police chef Krüger again. And Hogan put away Klink´s map after ensuring with a quick glance that it appeared to be adequate enough to follow. Then he turned the truck around and headed back to the church.

xxx

Upon entering the old rectory behind the church the four men were greeted by father Geisler. "I am glad you could spare a few men for us, Colonel Hogan. I hope we will be able to organize the evacuation of our children together."

"Don´t worry, we´ll get them out safe and sound. How many are there?"

"Sixty-three in all."

"What?!"

Newkirk gulped audibly. "Blimey, it´s going to be like a kindergarten field-trip!"

Father Geisler sighed. "I am sorry. I understand the Kommandant didn´t mention any numbers. Or maybe he wasn´t quite aware of it himself."

"Don´t bet on it," Hogan mumbled, but father Geisler explained: "The war has not been kind to Hamelburg. Fathers lost their lives at the front, so the mothers had to provide for the families and go out working in the factories – which in turn were bombed or blown up. And then the fire..."

Hogan paled; he heard the men swallowing behind him. "I am sorry, father. I really am." He, too, had to swallow a sudden lump in his throat. "I understand we are greatly indebted to these children. But believe me: we´ll do everything we can to get them out safely."

Father Geisler nodded. "I believe you, Colonel Hogan." A short silence. "Well, shall we go and meet the staff, to discuss what is to be done?"

He led the way into a large living-room, where at least fifteen kids aged two to early teenagers were noisily playing with small pieces of wood, twigs, chestnuts and acorns. In the corner two girls were quietly reading a book together and from a play-pen two toddlers did a reasonably good imitation of an airraid siren.

"Hello hello," Newkirk quipped, "are we at the zoo or something?"

Carter gulped. An instant hush fell over the room as the children noticed the visitors in their unfamiliar uniforms.

"Are you the Allies?" a brave boy asked with some trepidation.

Newkirk opened his mouth, but father Geisler was quicker: "These nice gentlemen are here to help us get away from the war. You will have the chance to talk with them later today."

"But are they the Allies?" the freckled boy insisted.

Hogan smiled. "Yes, my boy. We are Allied soldiers."

A sigh of – what: admiration? fear? relief? – went through the room as they passed through on their way to the adjoining conservatory. Within a few minutes they were joined there by two ladies, introduced by father Geisler: a Frau Magdalena Kirchhoffs, late thirties or early forties, who used to teach at the Hamelburg school until it was wiped out by the fire, and Fräulein Maryse Gotthardt, a pretty young blonde Hogan could hardly keep his eyes off at first. He was positively sure he had met her before, even though the name Maryse Gotthardt didn´t ring a bell. Perhaps she had been active in the underground? By some other name?

Newkirk scratched his head. "Are you people running this place full of anklebiters with only three adults?!"

A smile from father Geisler. "No. There are two more. But we cannot leave the children wholly unattended. Not even in situations such as these. Well, Colonel Hogan, what is your plan? What do you want us to do?"

Hogan cleared his throat and tore his eyes away from the beautiful Maryse. "Yes. Well..." He pulled himself together. No time for romantic drooling right now. "Right. I presume you have heard about the upcoming bombing-raid tonight?"

Three heads nodded in the affirmative.

"We all know that the Hamelburg valley has been completely cut off from the rest of the world. Presumably, no one can come in or get out of here. But according to Kommandant Klink, there still is a way out of here. But it´s not an easy one: we´ll have to walk, a shortcut through the hills. Which means we won´t be able to carry a lot of luggage. So everyone is restricted to carry only as much as they can carry on them. In their pockets, I mean."

"This goes for the children, too?" Fräulein Maryse asked. "You must know we have been preparing for something like this. Every child aged three and up in this house has his or her own simple, very lightweight rugsack. To keep their personal belongings in." Her voice lowered. "Most of them have hardly a scratch they can call their own, so the little they have is terribly precious to them."

Hogan´s face brightened. "Excellent. Well, let them pack their rugsack then."

"And what about the infants?" Frau Kirchhoffs asked.

All the men´s eyebrows shot up in alarm. "Infants?" they echoed simultanuously.

Father Geisler nodded. "We have six... no, seven children under the age of two here. They can barely walk. We can´t expect them to walk for miles, so we´ll have to carry them somehow. And I´m afraid the same goes for kids of two, three, four years old."

"By then they can easily be carried on a man´s shoulders," Hammond commented. "I used to carry my daughter around that way, too. But those little ones..."

"Perhaps we could make some sort of a carrying cloth," Frau Kirchhoffs proposed pensively. "Like they used to do in former days."

Maryse was immediately delighted. "Of course! We can take blankets for that! Then we can carry a child each, and still have our hands free!"

"But we´ll need more people," Frau Kirchhoffs pointed out. "I don´t think it possible to carry more than one infant that way."

"Don´t you worry about that; we´ve got more than enough people back at the camp," Hogan assured her. "We can take those youngsters down to the bridge in the truck; the others will have to walk then. Once we are at the bridge, each kid will be paired up with one of our men, who in turn will be responsible for the safety of just that kid."

"It might be a good idea to pair them up with guys who have kids back home," Hammond suggested. "No offence to you bachelors, but I think real fathers will have more of a natural sense of responsibility towards any kid placed in their care."

"Good point." Hogan nodded his appreciation. Taking Daddy Hammond on this assignment was already paying off.

"It would be helpful if they could communicate with the children as well," father Geisler suggested. "So if they´d speak and understand a little German..."

"Right. I´ll keep that in mind, too. Okay, everything clear? Get the kids ready as soon as may be; the youngest ones will go in the truck with Newkirk, the others will walk to the south end of the Hamelburg bridge. Any questions?"

"Yes..." Maryse hesitated. "These children have been through so many traumatic experiences lately... I´m afraid they might go straight into a panic when they hear we´ll have to evacuate the town. I can´t tell for sure of course, but..."

"But the chances are considerable that some of them might. Affecting all the others," father Geisler added.

Hogan frowned, but once again Daddy Hammond came to his rescue: "Not if we present it as a game. A game of pretense about a group of happy children going on a holiday or something like that."

They all saw Colonel Hogan´s face brighten, and the infamous glittering returning to his eyes. Newkirk started laughing even before Hogan had opened his mouth: "Look at the Governor; he´s got one of his crazy ideas again!"

"Indeed I have," Hogan grinned. "Carter, did you happen to bring your harmonica?"

Carter looked up, thoroughly puzzled. "What?" He had been playing with little Felix in his pocket, and hadn´t paid too much attention to what was going on around him. "My harmonica? Yeah, I have it right here." He pulled it from another pocket.

A slap from the colonel on his shoulder. "Ladies and gentlemen, in an hour or so we´re all going to participate in the premiere of a grand open air play that will involve the whole town. It will be an adaptation of an old German classic. May I present: the Pied Piper of Hamelburg!"

Carter gulped. "Who... me?!"


	3. Chapter 3

Ten minutes later they had everyone gathered in the large living-room. It was cramped, with sixty-three children and several adults, but at least they could all be informed at once this way.

As soon as father Geisler had the children hushed, he introduced Colonel Hogan, and told them that the American gentleman was going to lead them in a play this afternoon.

Hammond had been right, Hogan thought when he stepped in front of the multitude of children. Their eyes shone eagerly at the exciting prospect of whatever fun he might have in store for them.

"Hi kids," he greeted them, and then he changed to German. "Does anyone know what day it is today?"

Lots of hands shut up; Hogan nodded at a little girl in the first row. "Thursday."

He smiled. "Yes, it´s Thursday. But do you also know what _date_ it is today?"

She shook her head, and Hogan looked at one of the older boys in the back. "March 23rd, 1945," the boy answered promptly.

"And it´s my birthday today," a young boy piped up.

"Congratulations!" Hogan gave him a warm grin. "What is your name?"

"Elmar."

"Elmar, did you know that you have a very special birthday?"

The boy shook his head.

"For you have! March 23rd is a very special day for Hamelburg. Does any of you know why?"

Most kids shook their head.

"Especially this year," Hogan continued. "For this year, 1945, it is exactly fivehundred years ago that old king Dolf of Hamelburg broke his promise."

"Who is old king Dolf?" the freckled boy from before asked.

"Listen. I´ll tell you." Hogan looked around. His audience was already spellbound. "Fivehundred years ago, Hamelburg was already a nice little town. But there was one major problem: there were five times as many rats living in the little town than there were people."

The same older boy from before raised his hand. "Sir, I´m afraid you´ve got the towns mixed up. That was Hameln, not Hamelburg."

Hogan shook his head. "No. The trouble in Hameln was long before that. (1) But as it goes, it´s just a story, and old king Dolf didn´t believe in stories. No, he believed in power and money and armies. So when a lanky figure in multicoloured clothes showed up at his door, and announced that he could rid Hamelburg of its entire rat nuisance in exchange for one million marks in silver, old king Dolf didn´t even think twice: he accepted the deal.

"´Excellent,´ he said to himself when the rat-catcher (2) had left. ´Tomorrow we´ll have a ratless town, and I can send that colourful fool about his business. If he thinks he´ll get one million marks in silver, he´s got another thing coming!´

"That night, the rat-catcher played on his magic harmonica, and all the rats simply followed him to the river. The rat-catcher dipped one foot into the river, and the rats plunged in by hundreds at a time. And the magical music from the rat-catcher´s harmonica had cast such a spell over them, that they didn´t even remember to swim. And they all drowned, even in a tiny little river like the Hamel."

"That would have made for a nice weir to create an artificial Hamelburg lake," Newkirk muttered to Carter.

But Hogan had already continued. "When the rat-catcher returned to town the next morning, he went straight to old king Dolf´s palace.

"´I´ve come for my one million marks in silver, if you please,´ he told the king.

"But the king laughed heinously. ´You honestly believe I´d fall for that old trick? My good man, if I had known how you intended to whisk those rats away, I would have stopped you on the spot! There are laws – strict laws! – in this town concerning the practising of witchcraft. According to the law, I should sentence you to the stake! But since you do have helped us so beautifully in getting rid of the pests, I shall be generous and pardon you. As long as you´re out of this town by midday.´

"The rat-catcher narrowed his eyes. ´I see,´ he said. ´Yet another leader who thinks he can get away with tyranny and corruption.´

"Old king Dolf laughed raucously.

"´Apparently the lesson I taught the mayor of Hameln has already been forgotten,´ the rat-catcher sternly observed. ´Well, I shall have to double the punishment then. By tonight, my dear king, you will have no people to play king over!´

"He turned on his heel, and left the beautiful palace. Old king Dolf´s laughter rang in his ears.

"The rat-catcher went outside, and walked straight to the Wilhelmsplatz. There, he took out his harmonica again, and started playing another magical tune. It was telling a wonderful tale of a beautiful land, not far from here, where all the people were happy and lived for ever and ever. There was lots and lots of delicious food, all the animals were tame, and best of all: there was no war. Everyone was friends with everyone, and if the people would just follow the pied piper, he would take them there personally. And they would all live happily ever after.

"The people cheered, and they all followed the piper as he danced out of town to the music from his harmonica. They went down a path along the river, into a secret passage through the mountains, and when they emerged on the other side, they found a beautiful land in peace, just as the rat-catcher had said.

"And old king Dolf? He died a pauper, now that he had no subjects left to threaten and oppress and blackmail."

"It does sound an awful lot like that story from Hameln," one of the older kids commented after the initial silence.

Hogan raised his eyebrows. "Well, what do you expect? After all, it was that same piper!"

A few snickers in reply.

"Allright, here is what we are going to do," Hogan started his instruction. "This afternoon, the people of Hamelburg will be re-enacting the pied piper´s punishment, to remember that we should never break our promises. There will be a pied piper with a harmonica, leading the way along the river and into the hills, to the happy land in peace on the other side. All the people of Hamelburg will join us for the celebration. We´ll go down to the river singing and dancing, just as they did fivehundred years ago. And since we will be staying the night at this happy wonderland tonight, you kids might want to bring your favourite doll or stuffed animal or..."

"So pack your rugsack quickly, and then come down and wait here in the living-room," father Geisler cut in. "We will all go down to the bridge together, and have a great day with the pied piper!"

The children cheered and rushed out of the room to go and get their things.

Fräulein Maryse came in through another door, carrying a bundle of blankets and a colourful jester-outfit.

"Thanks, that´s great!" Hogan complimented her. He took the costume from her; small silver bells tinkled happily. "Carter, go into the next room and put this on. You´re going to be a perfect piper!"

Carter took the clothes from him, and searched them with a worried frown. "But Colonel, what about my personal keepsakes? And Felix? This suit doesn´t have any pockets!"

Hogan frowned. "You brought Felix with you?! I thought Baker was going to take care of your private zoo?"

"No, he would take care of Hasenpfeffer. Felix I could carry in my pocket. But if I have to wear this funny suit..."

"I´ll take your stuff. And Felix," Hammond offered. "I´m hardly bringing anything anyway."

So Carter emptied and Hammond stuffed his pockets.

"_Whaaaa!_" the oldest lady of the orphanage suddenly shrieked, making everyone jump. "A mouse! _Eeeeeh!!!!_"

"Don´t worry, ma´am," Carter said surprised. "He won´t do you any harm. It´s just my pet mouse."

Hogan ushered his sergeant towards the door with a sigh. "Into the other room with you. And take Felix with you for now. And I don´t want you going around scaring the ladies anymore. You know how they are with mice."

Fräulein Maryse chuckled. "It seems to me you picked the right man for the piper-job, Colonel Hogan."

"So it would seem..." Hogan sighed.

Carter disappeared into the adjoining room, and just as he awkwardly presented himself again with the others, the first kids came running in again, too.

"Wow! He really is the Pied Piper!" one of the boys exclaimed.

The embarrassed expression on Carter´s face quickly made way for a confident grin. He handed Hammond the mouse, grabbed his harmonica from the table, and the boys instantly started to dance to the tones he produced.

But Hogan whispered to him: "Better save your breath, mate. You´ve got a couple of hours of non-stop harmonica playing ahead of you."

Carter gulped, and quickly put the instrument away. To the utter disappointment of the kids of course.

While Maryse pinned the multicoloured triangular hat on his lanky hair, the other ladies were trying on the carrying cloths they had fabricated while Hogan had been telling his story. And as Newkirk started to distract the children with his card-tricks, Hammond moved closer to the ladies to give them a hand if necessary.

It had been so long since he had been near any females. His outings on Hogan´s account had been scarce. And now, if everything went right, he might be home with his wife within a few weeks. And all of a sudden the dormant wish to hold a woman in his arms had awakened. Not just any woman, like the Colonel and many of the other guys dreamt of. But the woman he loved. The woman he still loved.

Did he really? After having been separated for three years?

Melissa. _His_ Melissa.

Until this moment, it had never entered his mind to doubt his love for her. Or her love for him. But three years is a long time. A lot can happen in three years. Perhaps there had come another man into her life. Perhaps...

Then why did he feel so drawn to that Frau Kirchhoffs? She didn´t look anything like Melissa. Glad, happy Melissa. This woman instead radiated loneliness. Perhaps she was a widow; perhaps she had lost all her beloved ones to the war? Perhaps that´s why she intrigued him: she seemed so different from his happy Melissa.

At that moment it was her voice that cut through his thoughts: "I´m not going." Very determined.

Hammond felt his jaw drop; the ladies gasped. And as father Geisler took her aside to talk some sense into her, Hammond made sure he remained within earshot.

"Magdalena, you can not stay here."

"But I am. I am leaving Rosemarie in your care, father. Please make sure she gets to safety. But I am staying here; I can´t leave. David would never find me."

.

.

(1) The events as told in the legend of The Pied Piper of Hameln have been dated to the last days of June, 1284.

(2) The German title of the famous Pied Piper is Rattenfänger, literally "rat-catcher". Since Hogan is telling the story in German, I decided it would be more appropriate for him to mainly use the German word. And since the rat-catcher he invented plays the harmonica instead of a pipe, the title "piper" seems a bit misplaced as well.


	4. Chapter 4

_David Nowak had only just graduated from the Dresden medical college when Adolf Hitler came to power. Which meant his medical degree, his studies turned instantly useless: he was Jewish. His father advised him to leave the country; elsewhere his degree would be more accepted than here in the fatherland._

_But David refused. He figured the success of the NSDAP was hardly more than an accident. Once the hype would have quieted down, once the German people would realize what a fool that Hitler was, it would all be over. And it wouldn´t take long: German governments in the Weimar Republic had a devastating tendency of succeeding one another at a rapid pace._

_He had yet another reason for staying put in Germany. A female reason named Fräulein Magdalena Kirchhoffs. They had met – how conventional – at the birthday-party of a mutual friend a few years ago. This lady of course was as much a matchmaker as any of her sex. She immediately rated _his_ shy admiring glances and _her_ blushing smiles at their true value, and innocently arranged independent meetings of herself with both Magda and David at a cosy café in town, the following Saturday at 8 p.m. Where she herself didn´t show up until 10.30 of course. But from that night on, David Nowak and Magdalena Kirchhoffs were officially an item._

_Their carefully started infatuation had steadily grown into a sturdy love. They even started to talk about marriage once in a while, and David quietly planned to officially ask for her hand as soon as he would have graduated and found a decent job._

_Unfortunately he couldn´t be so sure about the reception though. For neither of their families was very happy about their relationship. Magda came from a catholic home, where Jews at best rated as heathens. And her family was quite open in their abhorrence of their daughter and sister being involved with such a pagan; they´d much rather see her marry into a good catholic family. As a result, David hardly ever entered the Kirchhoffs´s house in order to avoid unpleasantries that would undoubtedly affect the both of them._

_The Kirchhoffs´s didn´t exactly make a secret of their sentiments towards their daughter´s beau, and consequently David´s family was bound to hear about it even if David himself had kept quiet about it to his parents. And as it goes, they decided on the infamous strategy of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and declared that they would not want to see their son get involved with a family that had no respect for his background. And all this before David had even considered proposing to her..._

_Still, their families connived at their ongoing dates and meetings. But both David and Magda were aware that a marriage between them would probably force one or both of them to completely break with their family. And whether they were up to that...?_

_The years dragged on after David´s graduation. As expected, he could not possibly find a job as a doctor. Not even in all of Germany: Jews were forbidden to practice medicine altogether. And they would be as long as Hitler was in power. And despite David´s earliest expectations, it seemed more and more unlikely that this madman was soon to be replaced._

_In the end, the once so promising and ambitious young doctor was lucky to be granted a severely underpaid black job at an assembly line. The work there was so horridly monotonous that he felt sure he wouldn´t survive if he wouldn´t have his dearest Magdalena to come home to after work. So he gathered his courage and proposed to her. And found her crying in his arms._

_She didn´t dare to. She didn´t dare to, not in the present situation. She was scared. Scared of the certain poverty they would have to live in – a standard of living she was not accustomed to. And scared of a society that was becoming more and more threatening towards the group of people her David belonged to as well. She just didn´t dare._

_Their relationship almost ended that day. But in the end David´s anger subsided and he was able to find some understanding for her fears. And once again, they decided to wait. Wait till things would get better._

_It was tough, on both of them, but after nearly three dark and prospectless years, their patience was finally rewarded. By January 1938, the tide finally turned. David´s obstinacy in continuing to apply for a position more suited to his education finally paid off: he was offered a share in the practice of a Dr. Ernst Bauer in Hamelburg, a small country-town just outside Düsseldorf._

_His felicity knew no bounds: he had raced over to the Kirchhoffs, fell down on his knees as soon as Magda had opened the door and totally surprised her with a beaming marriage proposal._

_Magda had accepted before she realized what she said, and by then she was already being whirled around the wintergarden in his arms._

_"Why, what´s happened? Have you won the lottery or something?"_

_He laughed; the carefree laugh that had been locked up inside for years. A quick kiss on her nose, and then he finally spilled the great news: "I´ve been offered a share in a medical practice!"_

_A cry of joy and Magda hugged him so tight he nearly choked. "Oh David, I´m so happy for you..." She felt tears gathering in her eyes. She, and she alone had known the horrible sacrifice David had faced in working at the assembly-line for over three years. She had noted the growing differences between the gentle, friendly David she had grown to love so much, and the quiet, depressed, explosive shadow of him from the past years. This news, this job had brought the old, the real David Nowak back to the living, and she was sure they could now face whatever problems there were to arise concerning their marriage and the threatening society they were living in._

_The problems were closer than she realized. When she released her hug just enough to be able to look in his beaming eyes, and he whispered a heartfelt ´I love you, Magda´, as a sure prelude to what would have been their first real kiss, they were roughly jerked apart by a seething father´s hand._

_Magda cried out with the force her father had pulled her away._

_"You dirty Judehund! Get your paws off my daughter!"_

_David paled, and stiffened visibly._

_"And don´t you _ever_ get near my daughter again! Is that understood?"_

_And David, for the first time in years feeling strong and confident thanks to his newfound job, David chose to finally defy his father-in-law-to-be. Not that he uttered a word, nor that he made a move. No. He only looked the man straight in the eye, with his jaw set, his mouth a thin line, and his eyes black with barely contained anger and disdain._

_"Is that understood?" the man in front of him roared in his face._

_And David just looked at him, refusing to give in or to answer the question._

_"Hmpf," Mr. Kirchhoffs finally humphed. And he turned on his heel, dragging his daughter with him._

_"Tonight. Am Bahnhof," Magda managed to say sottovoce over her shoulder just before her father closed the door behind her. But she had seen David´s nod; he had understood._

xxx

_David went home to his parents first. The excited felicity about his job had been crushed by Mr. Kirchhoffs´s interference, but fortunately it regained some of its glamour when he saw how happy the news made his parents. His father had dozens of questions, of which he could answer but a few._

_"And what about Magda?" his mother quietly inquired when his father´s curiosity had finally reached its limits._

_David bit his lip. He felt tears gathering in his eyes, and impatiently he blinked them away. "We´re eloping. Tonight," he confessed hoarsely._

_His announcement was met by silence._

_"Believe me, I´d rather do it any other way!" he groaned tormentedly. "But Mr. Kirchhoffs doesn´t leave us any other choice! I..." He hesitated. "I went to see her this afternoon with the good news. And I proposed. And she accepted. For a few moments we were in seventh heaven. But then her father caught on to us, and told me never to get near her again. She just managed to mention a place to meet tonight before he hauled her off inside. And... I´m going."_

_A sigh from his father. "Funny how we never seem to learn from the past. Kind of tragic actually."_

_David looked at him questioningly, and his father chuckled. "I´m beginning to suspect that parents are but lousy judges in what would give their children happiness. No matter how well they mean." Another sigh. "Your mother´s family and mine weren´t too keen on us marrying either. A question of social standing. Well, you know the result."_

_"We´ve been happily married for over thirty years now," his mother added quietly._

_"Therefore," his father stood and placed his hands heavily on the shoulders of his only son: "Now that you two have made the decision, I will give you my blessing, my son. I hope you and your wife will be as happy – or even happier – in your life together as your mother and I."_

_David swallowed a sudden lump in his throat. "Thank you, father."_

_"And I hope you two are going to provide us with heaps of grandchildren!" his father added with a beaming grin._

_To this, David had but a smile. He then went quietly to his room to pack his meager belongings: his medical books and tools, the few not too worn pieces of clothing he could call his own, a few dear keepsakes..._

_Then his father entered the room with two of his best shirts and a jacket. "Here, son. I´d like you to have these. I know we´re not exactly of the same size, but hopefully Magda will be able to alter them. We can´t have you start your new job in nothing but rags, can we now."_

_David could scarcely find the words to thank his father. And when his mother, too, slipped him seventy-three marks from her secret savings ("because you deserve it, my boy, if only for not giving up") and his grandmother´s silver ring ("better an old ring than no ring at all"), he knew for sure that Magda and he could count on the moral support from at least _his_ family after all._

xxx

_David arrived at the railway-station at a mere quarter past six. At first he headed for the booking-office, but on second thought he decided he´d better wait. After all, he had no idea what time Magda would get there. Instead, he sat down in the giant hall, facing the entrance from the square outside the station._

_And facing the giant clock as well. Every minute was sixty times the slow tick of a second. And every next minute seemed to pass even slower than the one before. Six-thirty, six-forty-five, seven, quarter past, half past, quarter to... And all that time lots and lots of people entered the stationhall. But the one he was so anxiously waiting for was not among them._

_Where was she? What could have happened?! Had they locked her up or something?_

_Half past eight, nine o´clock, nine-thirty... He was chewing his lower lip to shreds._

_Ten o´clock, half past... The crowds had thinned significantly by now._

_Eleven... What am I to do if she doesn´t show up?! Go and get her?_

_Finally! There she was! At ten past eleven a little figure with a small suitcase rushed into the hall, anxiously looking around._

_"Magda!" David jumped up and ran to meet her. And there, in the middle of the stationhall, he caught her in his arms and hugged her tight. "I was getting worried that you couldn´t make it," he whispered in her hat._

_"I was given house-arrest, and they locked me in my room. But I climbed out of the window," she told him matter-of-factly._

_He couldn´t help laughing for relief. "My Magdali!_

_"Come on," he said then, "we might still make it to the night-train to Düsseldorf. Where´s your luggage?"_

_She pointed at the small cane suitcase at her feet._

_"That´s all you could take with you??"_

_She shook her head. "And about five layers of clothes,_ and_..." She waited a moment to add importance to her announcement: "My savings! We won´t have to starve until you´ll get your first salary!"_

_He smiled. "Great. My mother gave us some money, too. Well, let´s go and get tickets then, and then off to Hamelburg!"_

_David got his suitcase, they got their tickets – third class of course; for even if they would have been able to afford it, David as a Jew was not allowed to set foot in the more luxurious compartments – and they just made it to the platform in time._

_And as they fell down on the wooden bench in the further empty compartment, and Magda rolled into David´s arms as the train took the sharp turn out of the station, they both felt a whole new life was opening up before them. A life as man and wife. Together. On top of the world._

xxx

_It was halfway the following afternoon when they – stiffly but eagerly – climbed off the downtrain at Hamelburg station. They handed in their tickets, and a moment later they breathed in the cold, snowy air of the hills around Hamelburg._

_Hamelburg! They were determined to find thorough happiness here!_

_After some asking around they found their way to Dr. Bauer´s. With a mischievous grin, David entered the large house at the patient´s entrance and reported to the nurse at the desk._

_"I would like to see Dr. Bauer, please. But we´ve got all the time in the world, so you may book us in as the last patients of the day."_

_"There is no one before you, so you may as well be the first one," was the dry answer. "So if you take a seat, Dr. Bauer will come to see you in a moment."_

_They sat down in the empty waiting-room, and Magda whispered chidingly: "Is that a way to start your new job?"_

_But David smiled from ear to ear and took her hands in his. "I´m so excited; I just _had _to do something silly. I thought I kept it within reasonable bounds pretty well, didn´t you?"_

_She smiled, and he leaned over to kiss her._

_At that moment a door was opened and an elderly man with a goatee appeared. "Ahem," he coughed discreetly, and David and Magda jumped._

_"You wish to see me?" Dr. Bauer asked sternly. But the twinkle in his eyes was unmistakable, and David felt he could meet his employer openly._

_"Yes, sir. I´m Dr. David Nowak, your..."_

_"Dr. Nowak?" Dr. Bauer interrupted him with surprise. "I had not expected you to arrive here so soon! Please, do come in. And this is your... wife?" He looked rather puzzled. "I had not gathered that you were married..."_

_David hesitated. "Is that a problem?" He had to swallow a sudden lump in his throat. "Well, we are not actually married. Not yet. It´s a long story..."_

_Dr. Bauer gave them an understanding smile. "Then why don´t you both come in and tell me that long story of yours."_

_A few minutes later they were comfortably seated in the office, sipping their steaming hot coffee. David told their story, and Dr. Bauer listened without interrupting him._

_"I see," he said pensively when his young colleague finally fell silent._

_A few minutes of silence ensued. Then, Dr. Bauer suddenly turned to Magda. "I hope I am not offending you by asking this question, but... are your family members of the nazi-party? Or sympathizing with them?"_

_Magda shook her head. "No. They´re not. They just... they just don´t like Jews."_

_"Very well. That means the chances of their turning David – and you – in to the Gestapo are considerably less. We can´t be sure, but at least there is hope." He sighed. "But the first thing to do is getting you two properly married. If only for social reasons: in a town this size, people consider everyone else´s business their own. A marriage between a Jew and a German will probably cause more than enough talk; no need to make it any harder by adding a juicy elopement scandal. That is: Fräulein Kirchhoffs, are you really sure you want to stir up a hornet´s nest by marrying Dr. Nowak? You _do_ realize it is against the present law for a German to marry a Jew? I can´t predict the future, but chances are that in the end you may have to face the same social exclusion as your husband. Or worse, if the Nazi´s get their way."_

_Magda´s lips were a thin line. "I realize that. But I have made up my mind. I don´t care about what the world will say. I love David, and I want to be his wife. In good times and in bad."_

_A smile touched Dr. Bauer´s lips. "Fine. I suggest you two go and see father Geisler tonight then, so that the marriage may take place as soon as may be. I know him well; for him, God´s law is still the only law, so I doubt he will object to performing the ceremony."_

_David and Magda nodded. Relieved._

_"Fräulein," Dr. Bauer continued, "I think it is best if you´d stay in my guest-room until the big day. Dr. Nowak, you may sleep on the divan tonight; we´ll see about other arrangements tomorrow."_

_Magda nodded her approval, but David suddenly said: "Speaking of hornet´s nests, Dr. Bauer... May I be so bold as to inquire why you chose to employ_ me_? A Jew? I am very grateful for the opportunity you are giving me; I don´t think you´ll ever fully understand_ how_ grateful, but..."_

_Dr. Bauer sighed. "I don´t know if I did the right thing by that, but I wanted to make a statement. The Nazi´s have replaced so many excellent physicians, just because of their descent. And to replace them, they pulled kids out of medical school who hadn´t even taken their final exams yet, thus jeopardizing the entire medical corps as well as the people´s health. And since the nazi-party has relatively little support here in town, I thought I could combine practicality with ethics. There are hardly any qualified non-Jewish doctors left on the labour-market, and by choosing you, I hope to consolidate the Hamelburghians´ idea that Jews are ordinary people like you and me." Another sigh. "I want to give young, promising physicians like you a chance. A chance for a somewhat normal life in the madhouse that Germany has become. But whether it will work out the way I hope for...?"_

xxx

_Things were organized pretty much as Dr. Bauer had suggested. By courtesy of the old doc, David managed to get hold of a small house in the labourer´s district of the town. They had next to nothing to furnish it with of course, but at the local fleemarket the following Saturday they were fortunate enough to get the basic necessities. It was a large slice out of their budget, but oh, the pride they felt in creating their own little home..._

_David had started his work the Monday following, and even though it happened regularly that a patient refused to be treated by him, he loved practically every minute of it. Finally he was able to do the work he loved; to make his studies and his knowledge productive. Like in the factory, the hours were long here, too. But it was a totally different David Nowak from before who went up with Dr. Bauer every day after work to spend a few hours with his future wife. Happy, open, full of life, and in love._

_The date for their wedding ceremony was set for two weeks after their arrival in Hamelburg. Father Geisler had readily agreed to marry them as they wished, though he did insist on a private talk with Magda to point out to her the many problems she may have to face by marrying a Jew. And not just with respect to the growing anti-semitic tendencies in today´s society, but in her personal religious life as well. However, when he found that the bride-to-be had long since considered these problems and was still determined to follow her heart, he decided to let it be and grant the couple his blessing._

_The wedding was celebrated on a late Friday afternoon in early February 1938. It was a private celebration, and the only ones attending the matrimonial service besides the three leading figures were the two witnesses: Dr. Bauer, and a visiting nephew of father Geisler´s: a rather shy young man in his early twenties named Karl Langenscheidt._

_Dr. Bauer beamed from ear to ear; almost as if he were the father of the bride. And when the ceremony was over, he clasped David´s hand and said: "And now you two go and enjoy your well-deserved weekend´s honeymoon!"_

_Money to go on a real honeymoon of course they had not. But the sensation of living together in their own house, with no one watching over them, and the opportunity to explore their contained passion from years made for a wonderful honeymoon anyway._

_And so, under the darkening sky of Hitler´s nazi-Germany, the new Mr. and Mrs. Nowak lived the life of ´happily ever after´._

_For a few weeks that is._

_For one cold night in early March was to turn both their lives inside out and upside down. By courtesy of none other than – who else – the Gestapo._

.

-----------------------------------------------------

Note from the author: David (Ratcliffe) and Magda (Heller) are characters I borrowed from another favourite TV-show: _The Flying Doctors_. When I started writing Hogan´s Heroes fanfiction, I started wondering how my favourite fanfic-characters from this other show (taking place in Australia, in the late 80´s and early 90´s) would react under completely different circumstances, like in Nazi-Germany. This background story was the result. We´re still talking in the past here, but don´t worry: the connection with the story of The Pied Piper of Hamelburg will become more clear later on.


	5. Chapter 5

Note: If you´d prefer to avoid an unexplained character shock, it might be wise to read my other story _Chameleon Fever_ up till chapter 5 first, before continuing here! (Unless you have figured out Oskar Danzig´s true identity by yourself of course ;-)

.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

.

_Magda and David had happily enjoyed yet another night of making love – there had hardly been a night without ever since their wedding-night – and then falling asleep in each other´s arms, when they were awakened by a loud thumping. _

_On their _back_ door. _

_And an urgent voice calling for Dr. Nowak._

_David was on call that night, so he hopped out of bed, jumped in his pants and ran downstairs to find out what was going on._

_As soon as he unlocked the back door, a man in a checkered overcoat and a cap drawn down over his eyes bursted in and as quickly shut the door behind him._

_"Quick!" he panted._

_"What´s going on? Is there an emergency somewhere?"_

_But the stranger grabbed him by the arm and led him back upstairs. _

_"Now wait a minute!" David protested vehemently. "You can´t just barge in here and...!"_

_"Be quiet!" the stranger hissed urgently. He led the still resisting doctor into the bedroom, where Magda quickly covered herself. _

_"David?! Who is this man?"_

_The stranger pulled off his cap. "I´m sorry if I frightened you, Frau Nowak. It´s Karl Langenscheidt, father Geisler´s nephew. I was a witness at your wedding, remember?"_

_They had to peer four, five times in the dark shadows before they recognized something vaguely familiar in the sturdy bearded man in his forties._

_"I´m an actor, and disguising is my specialty," Langenscheidt apologized when he saw their apoplectic expressions. "But time is running out too quickly for lengthy explanations. Dr. Nowak, the Gestapo is on its way here. They´re rounding up all the Jews in a giant razzia tonight, and Lord knows what they´re going to do to them. You have to flee, to hide, now! They can be here any minute!"_

_Still hesitantly, David picked up his shirt. "Flee? Where to?" _

_"I´ll come with you. And if you lose sight of me, hide in the graveyard of father Geisler´s church; I´ll catch up with you there. Now hurry up and get dressed before they get here!"_

_David finally made haste in getting dressed._

_"You better put on something, too, Frau Nowak," Langenscheidt said gently. "They can be here any moment; you don´t want to face the Gestapo in a state of nature, do you?"_

_Magda blushed, still overwhelmed by everything that was suddenly happening around her. But before she even moved, they all heard the sound of screeching tyres coming to a halt very close by. Cardoors slamming, orders being barked..._

_"Quick!" Langenscheidt whispered urgently. _

_And while David threw on his jacket and grabbed his cap, Karl Langenscheidt opened the bedroom windows and climbed out on the roof. _

_For one final time David bent down to his wife. "Don´t you worry; I´ll be back," he whispered over the shouting outside. "I love you. Wait for me."_

_At that moment the front door was kicked in. _

_One final superquick kiss, and then her dear David jumped up on the windowsill, coolly closed the window behind him and disappearead out of sight over the dark roof. For a moment she thought she heard his footsteps creaking on the tins. But the next thing she knew she was surrounded by four, five Gestapomen in their black uniforms. _

_Magda sat paralyzed._

_"Well? Where is he?" a guy with a very nasty voice demanded._

_"M... my husb... my husband?" Magda stammered. Try and act normal! Natural, she told herself. _

_Natural... She still wasn´t clad..._

_"Paah! Of course your ´husband´!" that nasty guy growled. _

_"He... he´s out on a call." Magda heard how shaky she sounded._

_"And you sleep naked even when you are alone?" the man drawled. "Search the house!" he then barked. _

_The other men swarmed out over the house, turning everything inside out, and trashing whatever came in their way. Only their leader stayed, to keep watch over Magda, and his eyes made her feel very uneasy. What was he up to? _

_David was gone; hopefully in safety by now. That Langenscheidt guy had been just in time. _

_But something in this Gestapoman´s eyes warned her that she herself was not exactly in safety..._

_One by one the men returned to the bedroom. "Nothing," was all they had to report._

_"Well then, my dear Frau Nowak," their leader drawled again, his fingers playing with the gun in his belt. "I am sure you will be able to tell us where this call was your Dr. Nowak had to attend to."_

_"N... no! I _don´t_ know!" Magda nearly cried out for fear seeing the gun suddenly in the leader´s hand, pointing right at her. "I swear, I don´t know where he´s gone! He doesn´t always tell me!"_

_"Oh, you swear, do you now? Well, I´m sure we have a few methods that will help restore your memory. Take her away!" he ordered._

_"But why!" Magda cried out as strong hands pulled her out of bed, naked and all. "What have I done?"_

_The nasty guy brought his face so close to hers that she could smell his bad breath. "Why? Because you´re a dirty Jew-lover, my dear. A traitor! Take her away," he barked again._

_And Magda was dragged down the stairs, hauled through the broken front door and thrown into the black truck. Three of the men jumped in the back with her, and off they sped through the night._

xxx

_A dark, rough cell. No window. Just a small plank bed; no mattress, no blanket. Nothing to cover herself with. _

_Shivering, her knees drawn up to her chin, she leaned against the rough cell-wall. Where was she? How long had she been here? It could be half an hour, it could be three days. She had lost all track of the time, of night and day. It was just dark. And cold. And she was thirsty._

_Still, they left her alone. So far. _

_Every now and then cries from the corridor outside or from other cells floated to her ear. Raw cries, full of pain, of fear, of despair. She didn´t know what was going on. But she was scared. Scared for the moment they´d remember_ her_, and start on _her_. And judging by the cries she heard, they were not likely to merely ask questions..._

_What had happened the other night? Had David managed to get away with that Langenscheidt guy? Was he safe now? Would he know by now what had happened to her? Would anybody know at all? Would anybody _care_?! _

_She felt like crying, but she would not. She preferred to appear strong in front of her captors, whenever they might take notice of her again. _

_If only she could get out of here..._

_David´s words echoed in her mind: "Don´t you worry; I´ll be back. I love you. Wait for me." She had to hang onto that. To his love, and his promise to come back to her. _

_But would he have guessed that there might be just as much to worry about _her_ as there was about him? _

_A sudden rattling at the door, and with a clang it flew open. From the outside a bare bulb was turned on, mercilessly exposing her nakedness._

_Magda blinked against the sudden light and quickly crossed her arms over her breasts. _

_"So..." It was the leader with his nasty drawling voice. He shut the door behind him and came to stand right in front of her. "Is your memory coming back yet? Tell me: where is that Judehund Nowak? We´ve been guarding the house; he hasn´t come back yet."_

_"I don´t know where he is," Magda responded. She tried hard not to shiver in front of this man. _

_"That is a lie!" the man growled._

_"It is the truth! I don´t know where he is." If only she did... Or maybe better not; who knows what this guy was up to to make her talk. The less she could betray, the better._

_An unexpected blow to the head almost made her lose her balance. _

_"Tell me: where is he!"_

_"I don´t know! Honestly!" Magda groaned. _

_Another blow, from the other side this time. "Don´t lie to me! Where is he!"_

_She held her head in her hands; she didn´t venture an answer this time._

_Suddenly the man was awfully close to her. "You won´t talk, huh? Well, don´t worry, my dear. We have ways to make you talk. Very pleasant ways – for me! Whether they will be equally pleasant for you..."_

_With a sudden, forceful move he pushed her shoulders down on the cot. And Magda knew instantly what he was up to: to wipe out the sweet memory of David´s gentle body against and in hers, by replacing it with a memory of brutal and painful force. She couldn´t let that happen! _

_But what could she do?! Her__ knees were still pulled up to her chest, as a buffer, but... But if she´d be able to stop him from...? No doubt that he was far stronger than she was. And the way he leaned in on her... _

_"Ja, now I see you cowering, huh? Then tell me where this Hund is, and I might __– just might! – leave you alone."_

_She didn´t answer; her mind was frantically searching for a way to prevent him from..._

_"You still don´t remember, do you? Well, let´s see if we can remedy that." He stood up straight again to undo his belt and lower his pants. And he grinned at the growing fear in his prisoner´s eyes. "Come, my dear."_

_But just as he threw himself on top of her, Magda´s foot kicked out – almost of its own accord – and hit him with full force. Full in the crotch. So that he bounced back with a high-pitched shriek and fell to the floor, moaning loudly._

_Magda just stared; she could scarcely believe what she had done. _

_But then the celldoor flew open and two guards came rushing in. _

_"Major Feldkamp (1)!" one of them cried out as he noticed his superior moaning on the floor. _

_They helped the major up, and practically had to carry him out of the room. _

_And Magda just stared after them. Apathetically. _

_But just before the door fell shut again, she heard the major groan through his teeth: "She´ll pay for this..."_

_The light was turned off again, but after a while – ten minutes? an hour? half a day? – it was suddenly turned back on again. And the next moment the celldoor rattled open and revealed a seething major Feldkamp. _

_Magda tried to cover herself instinctively as the man – still somewhat unstable – entered the cell for the second time. _

_"You´ll pay for this," were his first, dangerously quiet words. "You´ll pay. Oh yes. Dearly." And he struck her head with a blow._

_For an unaccountable time, major Feldkamp took out his sadism and his frustrated male pride on her. She was kicked, punched, hit all over, dragged by her hair across the rough concrete floor, spit on, tramped on, thrown into the walls... _

_At first she tried to fight back as best she could, but her tormentor was so fierce and so sure in his hits that she quickly changed her tactics to just trying and evade his blows as much as __possible. And when he finally left her bruised and bleeding body lying in a heap on the floor, he yelled: "Becker! Shaving-tackle!"_

_Magda was scarcely aware of what happened. She hurt all over, and drifted in and out of a state of semi-consciousness. She was vaguely aware of something cold sliding over her head. And later on, she was thrown over someone´s shoulder and carried off, into the back of a truck again. _

_It was dark. And cold. _

_They stopped. She was shoved out by her hands and her ankles. And thrown in a ditch beside the road. _

_And the truck drove on, leaving its semi-conscious passenger by the wayside. _

.

.

(1) This could very well be the major (then colonel) Feldkamp from the episode _The Battle of Stalag 13_, who is undoubtedly a close relative of the infamous major Hochstetter´s.


	6. Chapter 6

_A few hours later, Frau Irmgard Telemann, a middle-aged widow from Hamelburg who served as housekeeper for father Geisler, was walking her dog in the woods along the Flenzheimer Straße._

_It was misty and chilly, but the dog – a German shepherd – loved the long Saturday-morning walks with his mistress. In these woods, at this time of day, he could run around free and give outlet to his playful sleuthy nature._

_But when they were about two kilometers from town, Stefan suddenly stood stockstill sniffing the air. And then he ran off at top speed along the road._

_"Stefan! Here!" Frau Telemann ordered._

_But the dog paid no attention to her commands. He came to a halt by the side of the road and barked fervently at something in the ditch there._

_"Stefan!" Frau Telemann called out again._

_But the dog kept barking, and ignored her calling._

_"Stupid dog," Frau Telemann muttered as she hurried after him. "What have you found this time? Not a dead gopher again?"_

_She stepped into the verge to grab him by the collar. But then she saw what he was barking over. And she cried out in shock._

_A body._

_At first she thought it was some kind of an alien: the multi-coloured limbs, the bald head, the black eyes, no eyebrows..._

_But then the eyes opened slightly, and the broken lips whispered: "Hilfe..." It was a woman. Naked. Badly manhandled._

_"Mein Gott," Frau Telemann whispered – shocked. "What have they done to you?"_

_She had to get help. But how? "Can you stand?" she urged the woman._

_There was no reaction. Had she died?! Had that "Hilfe" been her last word?_

_Carefully she stepped down into the ditch._

_No, the woman´s eyes followed her; she was not dead. Not yet._

_Frau Telemann knelt down and carefully brought her arm under the cold, bruised shoulders. "Can you stand?"_

_A barely visible shake of the head this time. And Frau Telemann felt a slight panic coming on. Obviously the poor woman was in no condition to walk all the way back to town with her. But how could she possibly leave her here in order to go and get help herself?!_

_That´s when Stefan pushed his snout in her neck. "Wroof!" he told her. And she sighed with relief._

_"Of course! You are such a smart dog; you can go and get help, can´t you?"_

_She searched in her pockets for writing material, and found a small pencil and an old receipt. With trembling hands she scribbled down a few lines, pushed the little scrawl deep into one of her gloves and held it out to the dog._

_"Stefan! Go to father Geisler! Quick! Run! Understood? Father Geisler!"_

_A muffled wroof as the dog took the glove from her. He gave her one last look; then he jumped back onto the road and took off in the direction of Hamelburg._

_"Please, God, let him go straight to father Geisler! And let help come quick, so that this poor woman may live!"_

_Then she took off her coat and spread it out over the bluish bruised body. She took off her shawl and wrapped it around the poor bald head, leaving only the face free._

_"Danke," the woman whispered barely audible._

_And Frau Telemann took one of the icy cold hands in hers and began to pray. As fervently as she had never prayed before in her life._

xxx

_Father Geisler was just about to start on his breakfast when he heard Stefan´s muffled barking outside. It took a few minutes before he realized that the dog wasn´t barking at Frau Telemann´s door, but at his own. Apparently he wanted to come in._

_Why, was he alone? Where was Frau Telemann?_

_Father Geisler went to the kitchen to open the door for the dog. Stefan simply raced in, turned back to him and laid down a black leather glove at his feet._

_"What´s this, boy? Isn´t that Frau Telemann´s glove?"_

_An urgent barking in reply, and father Geisler suddenly worried. "Is she in trouble?!"_

_More barking. Then Stefan took the glove from him and... what... tried to chew it up?!_

_"Hey, what are you doing?!" If only that dog could talk and explain!_

_But hey, what was that!_

_He took the glove from Stefan again. A white corner stuck out. Paper. A note?_

_It was indeed: "_Found badly manhandled woman by wayside Flenzh. Str. Need doctor and transport urgently!_"_

_"Good Lord!" father Geisler exclaimed. He grabbed his coat and hat and gallopped out of the door, with Stefan high upon his heels. Dr. Bauer lived only a few streets away..._

_It was a pale Dr. Bauer to open the door at father Geisler´s urgent non-stop ringing. "Father Geisler! You?! I thought...!"_

_Father Geisler had no time for social amenities. "Get your instruments and your car. Quickly!"_

_Dr. Bauer had enough experience to recognize an emergency. Without asking questions, he grabbed his bag, his coat, his hat and his keys, and within twenty seconds the priest, the doctor and the dog sat in the car._

_"Where to?" Dr. Bauer demanded as he started the engine._

_"Flenzheimer Straße."_

_The doctor nodded, and turned the car out into the street. "What happened?"_

_"Don´t know. Frau Telemann writes she has found a badly manhandled woman." He showed him the note._

_"Hm," was all Dr. Bauer said in reply. But his brow furrowed and as soon as they were out of town, he pushed down the pedal to near maximum speed._

_"There!" father Geisler pointed._

_Dr. Bauer had seen Frau Telemann, too, standing in the verge, waving her arms urgently, and he pulled over beside her._

_Father Geisler was the first one out of the car, but when he laid eyes on the creature lying there in the ditch, he staggered back. "Good Lord! Please save this poor woman! And bring those responsible for her present state to justice..." he added under his breath._

_Dr. Bauer showed less shock. He pulled back the covering coat, and almost dispassionately checked out the badly bruised body. "Concussion, possibly broken facial bones, wound at the back of the head. Neck seems to be okay. Broken collarbone, dislocated shoulder, possibly broken ribs. Several. Hypothermia, dehydration, possibly pneumonia. Severe bruises and grazes all over. Might have been raped as well."_

_He covered the poor body again with the coat and looked up at father Geisler. "We have to get her to my place. You take the legs; there does not seem to be major damage there. I´ll take the head and the body. But careful! Frau Telemann, open the back door of the car, please."_

_Very carefully the two men maneuvered the beaten body onto the back seat. And as a shaken Frau Telemann in father Geisler´s coat started her wandering back home with the dog, the car quietly passed her with its precious load._

_"Do you think what I think?" father Geisler asked quietly._

_"Gestapo," the doctor replied toneless. "I bet you a thousand marks that she was supposed to die in that ditch."_

_"I don´t bet," the priest answered in the same manner. "But I share your opinion completely."_

_"And that´s why I´m not taking her to the hospital," Dr. Bauer said determinedly. "Not unless it´s absolutely necessary. I´ll try and see what I can do for her at home. If she makes it all," he added sottovoce._

_"I´ve been praying since I saw her lying there._

_"Then please, father, keep praying."_

xxx

_The first thing Magda noticed as she slowly drifted back to consciousness was the warmth. There was a friendly warm temperature all around her. And she wasn´t naked anymore._

_No, not really. She had no clothes on, but she was covered by something soft. Heavy, but still soft. A... a blanket. Many blankets._

_But as she became aware of her body being nicely covered up under warm blankets, she also became aware of the body itself. And how it hurt. Her head, her face: eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, chin... her shoulders, back, chest, arms, stomach, legs... Had she been through a clothes-wringer or something? Or in an accident? Run over by a train perhaps?_

_She couldn´t remember. Coldness, yes. Darkness, fear... Fear!_

_She wanted to sit up, to run, to flee!_

_But the slightest muscle movement gave her such a jolt of pain that she groaned, and she gave up before she had even started to get up._

_Someone reacted to her moans and bent down over her. A man. He looked vaguely familiar, but her head hurt too much to try and remember where she had met him._

_"Meine Frau? Fräulein? What is your name? Can you tell me your name?" the man asked._

_He sounded urgent. But even though she was sure she knew the words he used, she couldn´t possibly put a meaning to them. Let alone answer the... yes, the question. He was asking something. A question._

_No, he was speaking again. She tried to concentrate on what he said, to make sense of the sounds he uttered. One word she understood: "Safe." She even sort of remembered what it meant._

_Safe. She was safe._

_And with a shallow sigh she fell asleep._

xxx

_When she woke up again, her head seemed a lot clearer than before. She opened her eyes – slowly, for even that hurt – and discovered she was lying in a room she had seen before. The wallpaper, the small painting on the wall... Where was she?_

_The same face she had seen before bent down over her again. "I see you are awake again. Are you feeling a little better?"_

_She wanted to say something, but all that came out of her throat was a hoarse croaky sound._

_Her pounding head was gently lifted up, a straw touched her cloven lips. Yes, there was her mouth. A straw. Drinking. Thirst!_

_She took an eager sip, and almost choked on it right away._

_"Easy now," the voice soothed._

_She knew that voice. Who was this man? D... D... David?_

_No._

_David._

_Where was David?_

_She wanted to ask where David was, but her mouth wouldn´t quite cooperate._

_David. Why did she want to know where David was?_

_David was... David was..._

_Her lips tried again to form the difficult sounds. And the man – an old man, she registered – noticed and bent down over her again._

_"What is it?"_

_Another try. She wet her lips. "Dav... Dav-vid," she then croaked. "Where´s Da... vid..."_

_"David? Who is Da...?" Suddenly Dr. Bauer choked on his words, and his eyes widened in shock and surprise. "Magda? Magda Nowak?!"_

_"Yes," she answered with difficulty. That was right, wasn´t it?_

_No, wait. She was Magda... Magda... Kirchhoffs! No. Magda Nowak. That´s right. She was married. To David Nowak. That´s why she wanted to know where David was. He had fled over the roof, together with... with... well, whoever it was. And she..._

_All of a sudden she burst out in tears. Dr. Bauer carefully lifted her up a little and cradled her in his arms._

_"Where´s David?" Suddenly that was all she wanted to know. All she could care about._

_But no matter how much he would like to, Dr. Bauer could not answer that question..._

xxx

_A few days later, when she had recovered enough to be able to coherently relate what had happened, Dr. Bauer was relieved to hear that at least she hadn´t been raped._

_"I kicked him full in the guts when he tried to," Magda told him with grim satisfaction. "The guards had to carry him out. And when he came back for his revenge, I had the distinct impression that he hadn´t quite recovered enough to try it a second time."_

_Dr. Bauer chuckled. "Good on you. Though he might have gone easier on you, had he had the chance to..."_

_"That is just the outside," Magda replied with great dignity. "All that counts is that he hasn´t smudged the sacred inside: the parts I want only David to touch."_

_"Yes." Dr. Bauer smiled. "You are probably right: that is the most important thing."_

_Magda sighed. "If only I knew what happened to him..."_


	7. Chapter 7

_It was about a week later – Magda was half sitting in bed for the first time – that she got a visitor. There was a soft knocking on the guest-room´s door, and the head of a shy young man with big baby-blue eyes peeped around the door. "Frau Nowak? May I come in, please?"_

_"Sure," she answered in surprise – she hadn´t seen anyone but Dr. Bauer for the past ten days; it might be nice to talk to someone else for a change._

_The young man came in and his gangling figure sat down on a chair. He kept his eyes on the cap he was turning around and around in his hands, as if he was afraid to meet her eyes. _

_They sat silent for a few minutes, while Magda studied her visitor. She was pretty sure she had met him before, but... "Excuse me, sir, but I seem to have forgotten your name."_

_The young man looked up. "I´m Karl Langenscheidt, the man who..."_

_Magda sat up with a start, even though her suddenly pounding head and aching shoulder reminded her that she was not supposed to. "Karl Langenscheidt!? _You _were the one who...! Where is David? Is he safe?"_

_Karl nodded. "He is safe. For the moment. They didn´t get him."_

_A sigh of relief, and Magda suddenly felt the tears streaming down her face. _

_Langenscheidt watched her in agony for a few moments; then he handed her his handkerchief. "I´m so sorry, Frau Nowak," he told her quietly. "I had not expected they would take you instead when they didn´t find him. Otherwise I would of course have taken you along as well." He gulped. "I´m so sorry. In a way it´s my fault what they have done to you. And I hope I´ll be able to make it up to you – if only a little bit."_

_Magda had a vague smile. "Don´t worry about that. Where is David?"_

_He shook his head. "I´d better not tell you, for your own safety as well as for his. But as soon as Dr. Bauer thinks you´re fit enough to travel, I´d like to take you there, too. To go into hiding, I mean. The Gestapo has been watching your house ever since; probably hoping that David will return. But we don´t want them to get hold of you again either, do we?"_

_Magda slowly shook her head. "No. I´d rather not." She sat for a moment, her still slow brain digesting the information. "What do you mean: go into hiding?"_

_Langenscheidt sighed. "You know the nazis blame the Jews for every problem in this country, don´t you?"_

_Magda nodded. "But that´s nonsense."_

_"Of course it is. But it´s an excuse for what might become a genocide if they remain in power much longer."_

_"Genocide?" Magda frowned. "What is that?"_

_"Killing off an entire ethnic group," Langenscheidt replied quietly. "They might already have started: Jews are taken from their homes and never heard from again. But there are rumours: about labour camps, deportations... even about mass executions."_

_Magda paled. "They wouldn´t do that. They may not exactly be the good guys, those nazis, but I cannot believe sane people would do such a thing."_

_Langenscheidt sighed. "Neither can I. But when a country is led by a madman... As I said, they´re just rumours; I don´t know if it is true. But I do know that many Jews have left the country. And those who didn´t are mysteriously disappearing after a surprise visit f__rom the Gestapo. And I´m afraid that most of them had no chance to go into hiding."_

_"You mean we´ll have to leave the country," Magda summarized._

_Langenscheidt nodded. "That would be the wisest thing to do. At least until that madman and his party are replaced by a more humane government. It may seem like a drastic measure, but from what I´ve heard and seen of those nazis, I´d say: ´Better safe than sorry´. Just look at what they did to you."_

_"Is David already out of the country?"_

_"No, not yet. It takes time to organize fake papers."_

_"And where do we go?"_

_"To Holland. It´s closest, and there is a large Jewish community there, especially in Amsterdam. Many Jews from Germany have taken refuge there, and the Dutch are historically known for being pretty tolerant toward Jews." He sighed. "You may as well face it, Frau Nowak: by marrying Dr. Nowak, according to the present people in power you pretty much turned yourself into a Jew..."_

_Magda made no reply. She remembered father Geisler´s warnings. Dr. Bauer´s concern. Her own family´s fervent pleas not to get involved with this man. Reality had proven them right. But she had no regrets. Marrying David and being his wife was the best thing she had ever experienced. Even if she could have, she had no desire to alter her decisions._

_"Herr Langenscheidt," she said quitely, "I assume that you know where my husband is."_

_Langenscheidt gave no reaction to her statement._

_"Would you have the opportunity to pass on a message to him, without endangering your or his safety?"_

_This time Langenscheidt nodded. Slowly._

_"Then please give me a piece of paper and a pen."_

_Langenscheidt complied without a word._

_"Have you told him what happened to me?"_

_A shake of the head. "I only just found out myself."_

_"Good. Then don´t. I don´t want him to worry unnecessarily, and I´ll be allright anyway. I´ll tell him myself when I see him again."_

_She took the pencil in her hand. Writing felt rather awkward with a shoulder that didn´t quite work yet. She barely recognized her own handwriting; hopefully David would, for she could of course hardly sign it, in case it fell into the wrong hands. So the message had to convey that it came from her. And after some thought she scribbled down with some difficulty: "_Don´t you worry, I´ll come back to you. I love you. Wait for me._"_

_O__ne last look, then she handed the note to the man at her bedside. _

_He folded it in two and put it away in his pocket. "I´ll see to it that he gets it, Frau Nowak."_

xxx

_That night, the archives of the local registrar´s office in the Hamelburg town hall went up in flames. Apart from the room they were kept in, the town hall suffered but minor damage. But from that day on, the nazis had no records of the people living in Hamelburg. And maybe even more important: nor of their descent._

_The night following, a similar thing happened at the registrar´s office in nearby Flenzheim. And two nights later, an explosion destroyed an entire wing of the Düsseldorf town hall – including the registrar´s office._

_The nazis in the area fumed. This could not possibly be a coincidence; no, it was a deliberate act of sabotage! And even though several witnesses claimed to have seen an elderly man with a white beard acting somewhat suspiciously around all three of the town halls the night of their disasters, the culprit was never found. _

xxx

_"Dr. Bauer? Frau Nowak!"_

_Dr. Bauer jumped as an agitated, rather corpulent stranger with a large grey moustache barged into his living-room. _

_"Dr. Bauer, have you seen Dr. Nowak?"_

_"No." Dr. Bauer eyed his uninvited visitor from head to toe. "And who might you be, if I may be so bold to ask?"_

_The visitor tore off his cap, revealing a bald head with just a few fluffs of hair above the ears and a face more wrinkled than Dr. Bauer´s. "It´s me, Karl Langenscheidt. Father Geisler´s nephew."_

_All Dr. Bauer could do was stare at the stranger. The voice sure sounded young enough, but could his eyes betray him that badly?! Wasn´t it an elderly man standing before him?_

_"It´s me! Honest!" the man calling himself Karl Langenscheidt urged the poor confused doctor. "I don´t have the right papers about me right now, but..."_

_And then something clicked in the good doctor´s brain. Those baby-blue eyes with the – for a man – exceptionally long eyelashes... Yes, perhaps the man before him _could_ be Karl Langenscheidt, father Geisler´s nephew. But how... why...?_

_But the Langenscheidt-stranger had run out of patience by now and with a swift movement ripped off the plastic layer of baldness. "See?"_

_Dr. Bauer gulped. "Yes. I see." The figure in front of him looked totally unreal now: thick goldish brown hair, an old wrinkled face, the grey moustache... and the corpulent body was quite a change from the gangling young man he _thought_ he was acquainted with, too. "You could have fooled your own mother!" he muttered._

_A lopsided grin. "I know. By experience." But then he cut down to business again. "Have you seen Dr. Nowak?"_

_"No. Should I have?"_

_"You´d better not, but... Is Frau Nowak upstairs?"_

_"Yes. In her room. Still resting."_

_Before the doctor could make objections, Karl Langenscheidt was already back in the hall and racing up the stairs. _

_He found Magda sitting in the pillows against the bedboard, and after a first incredulous look when she saw him, she burst out laughing. But she stifled her laugh right away, with her hand going to her face, to her chest. "Don´t make me laugh. It hurts," she told him in mock stern._

_"Sorry."_

_"Is this your latest disguise?"_

_"Half of it. I had to remove a piece to make Dr. Bauer understand it was really me."_

_She snickered; at least that hurt less. _

_"Frau Nowak, you haven´t seen or heard from your husband these days, have you?"_

_"No. Why?" Magda tensed visibly._

_"He´s gone," Langenscheidt said simply._

_"Gone?! What do you mean: gone?" She paled. "The Gestapo?"_

_Langenscheidt shook his head and sat down. "The people who were hiding him and a few others got a visit from the Gestapo yesterday. Apparently someone betrayed them, for they knew exactly what they were looking for. They turned the whole house upside down. They found the three other people in hiding, and they demanded that they´d tell them where number four was. But they all insisted they didn´t know. The people were hauled off in a Gestapo truck, with a few men left behind to continue searching the house for this last one. But after a few hours, and pretty much having trashed the place, they left empty-handed. No shooting has been heard, so it´s not likely that they have found him anyway and killed him on the spot. And from the description I have got of the people taken away, there is no doubt that your husband was the one missing."_

_Magda let out a sigh. "Thank God..."_

_Langenscheidt sighed with her. "The problem is," he continued, "that no one seems to know where he is. I´ve enquired with all my contacts in the area; nobody has seen him. And the one thing we do know for sure is that he has no money, and no papers on him. Nor does he have any details about the escape route or contacts; all he knows is that we were preparing for the four of them to get to Holland. And..." He gulped. "And since I had not yet had the opportunity to contact him since my visit here, he didn´t even know yet that we were going to send you with him..."_

_Magda sat deadly still. "You think he´s dead, don´t you."_

_"I didn´t say that," Langenscheidt replied gently. "There is nothing to indicate it, but... yes, he might be dead."_

_Magda didn´t move._

_"But it is just as possible that he has managed to escape in the initial confusion of the Gestapo arriving," Langenscheidt continued. "And in that case, I figured he might – just might! – have headed back to you. To Hamelburg. But he hasn´t been seen around here either. So I have some hope that he has indeed managed to get away and found another hiding-place. Perhaps he has even made it across the border by himself. But as it is, I do not know..."_

_Magda still didn´t move._

_"Frau Nowak?" Langenscheidt tried worriedly._

_"Please leave me alone, Herr Langenscheidt," came a quiet voice. "I need to think."_

xxx

_To Dr. Bauer´s worried dismay, Magda had completely retreated into herself upon receiving the news of her husband´s disappearance – or death. She didn´t eat, she didn´t sleep, she didn´t speak, she didn´t cry. She drank whenever he held out a cup of tea to her – with lots of sugar__ in it to fight off the shock. But for the rest she just sat there, with empty eyes staring into the distance._

_It wasn´t until three days later that Langenscheidt´s next visit brought back some life into Magda. For Karl Langenscheidt had news. Even though it was but vague: a truck-driver remembered having given a guy more or less matching David´s description a lift to Köln a few days ago. _

_"What would he want in Köln?" Dr. Bauer wondered._

_"I don´t know," Langenscheidt admitted, and they both looked at Magda for a possible explanation._

_"I knew it," Magda whispered. "He´s alive!"_

_"Why would he go to Köln, Frau Nowak?" Langenscheidt repeated gently. "Do you have family there? Friends he can trust?"_

_For the first time in three days Magda´s eyes focused again. "Not that I know of. As you know, we only just moved here. We´re from Dresden. And as far as I know, I don´t recall ever having heard David mentioning acquaintances in this part of the country."_

_A triple sigh._

_"Well, at least _you_ will be fit enough to travel in a week or so," Dr. Bauer said. "At least we can make sure that _you_´ll get to safety."_

_"No."_

_"What?!"_

_"No." Very determined. "I´m not going. I´m not leaving Hamelburg."_

_"Why on earth not? You´ll be far safer across the border!"_

_"And there is no guarantee the Gestapo won´t bother you again!"_

_"I realize that. But I´m not going."_

_"Why?" Dr. Bauer demanded._

_Magda looked up into his angrily worried eyes. "Just before he left with Herr Langenscheidt, David told me to wait for him. For he´d come back. And he will; he has never gone back on his promises. Right now, I don´t have a clue where _he_ is, but _he_ knows exactly where to find _me_. If I were to leave Hamelburg, not only would I have no chance of finding _him_, but _he_ wouldn´t be able to find _me_ anymore either! So unless he´ll let me know where to find him, I´m not leaving here. I´m staying. Waiting for him to come back to me."_

_The two men looked at each other. Her arguments made sense, but..._

_"Do you realize you are taking a huge risk?" Langenscheidt asked gravely._

_"Yes, I do realize that."_

_"Do you realize that there is a chance that he may _not _come back?"_

_"He will. He said he would."_

_"That he may not be _able_ to come back?" Langenscheidt carefully rephrased his question._

_Magda bit her lip. "It doesn´t matter. As long as there is a chance that he´ll come back to me, I am not leaving this town."_

_Langenscheidt sighed. "Allright. I´ll see what I can do."_

xxx

_"No!! I´m _not_ divorcing him!" Magda yelled at the top of her voice. "How dare you even suggest such a thing!"_

_Langenscheidt staggered back as she furiously slapped him in the face. "Hold it," he tried to cool her down. "Of course you´re not really divorcing him. But if we can get the world to believe that you have, there is a fair chance that in time they´ll forget your stigma as the lady who married a Jew."_

_"I don´t care; I´m _not_ betraying him, no matter what you say!"_

_Langenscheidt sighed and took her trembling hands in his. "Frau Nowak, will you _please_ calm down and listen to me?"_

_"I´m not divorcing him. Not now, not ever," Magda insisted._

_"Sit down," he told her._

_More or less against her will she sank down beside him; her strength was still very weak. _

_"There are lots of people in the area," Langenscheidt began his explanation, "who know that Dr. Nowak is a Jew, and that you – a non-Jew, if I may use that expression – recently married him. In the eyes of the present authorities, that pretty much makes you a Jew as well._

_"You know by experience that certain powerful groups in this country do not regard a Jew as a human being. Instead, they´re being bullied, abused, tortured, and possibly killed. And as long as the nazis are in power, I´m afraid that is only going to get worse._

_"Now if you stay here in this town as Dr. Nowak´s wife, the authorities are bound to get on to you again sooner or later, and you´d be treated like any other Jew. Which means you would disappear: to a labour camp or something, or perhaps simply be killed. Either way Dr. Nowak will not find you here on his return."_

_Magda sat quiet. She hated to admit it, but Langenscheidt probably had a point._

_"If instead you pretend you´ve divorced him, there is a fair chance that you will be treated as an ordinary German again. Which means that you _will_ be here when Dr. Nowak returns. And isn´t that the most important?"_

_"But what if he hears about it?" Magda asked with a tremble. "Wouldn´t he think that...?"_

_"He´s a smart guy; I´m sure he´ll understand."_

_"But how would you do it?"_

_"Easy. The local registrar´s office has been destroyed. So they can´t check you out anymore. I´ll simply get you an Ausweis in your maiden name."_

_She burst into desperate tears. "But I don´t _want_ to divorce him!"_

_"I know." Langenscheidt heaved a sigh, and awkwardly he took the crying woman in his arms. "I know it´s hard. But try and remember that it´s only temporary. As soon as this madness is over, you´ll be back together again."_

_She just kept crying on his shoulder. "I want him. I want him so badly!" she moaned._

_Soothingly he patted her back, until she sat up and made a clumsy effort to brush her tears away. _

_"But if we do find out where he is, I can still go to him, can´t I?"_

_"Of course you can. That´s what I´m actually hoping for."_

_"And I don´t want father Geisler to think that I´ve divorced him."_

_Langenscheidt had a slow smile. "Sure. I´ll tell him about the arrangement if you like."_

_She frowned. "You?"_

_"He is my uncle, remember? Anyway, I do not want you returning to your house until the Gestapo has lost interest in it. And I´d like to keep a bit of an eye on you there, so you´ll see me quite often."_

_"Yes, but..." She hesitated. "I´m going to have to find a job. I think I have enough savings to get me through a few months, but... That is, if they´re still there..."_

_"At the house? I doubt it, I´m sorry." He sighed. "Well, we´ll cross that bridge when we come to it. First..." He picked up the bag he had placed on the floor upon his entrance. "We´ve got to make you look a little better."_

_He opened the bag and to Magda´s surprise he pulled out a female´s wig. And another one. And another..._

_"Where did you get those?"_

_He smiled bashfully. "I need them for my work."_

_"But... I thought you were an actor!"_

_"I am." A deep sigh. "I´d rather not mention this, and I´d appreciate it if you´d keep the lid on it as well, but..." Another sigh. "My main line of work is impersonating women."_

_"What!" Magda was stunned, and involuntarily she moved away from him a bit. "You´re joking..."_

_He shook his head. "No, I´m not. But I have a stagename of course. And I´d rather not have the name Karl Langenscheidt linked to that part of my life."_

_Magda let go of her breath. "Yes, I can imagine that." She was quiet for a moment, digesting the information. "So..." she hesitated awkwardly, "are you one of those__... men... who... well... actually want to be a... a woman?" _

_"No." Langenscheidt frowned, obviously pondering how much he could or should reveal. He studied the ceiling for a moment; then he continued quietly: "It started when I was still in school, as a joke. A bet. But with eleven sisters__ for an example, I happened to be so good at it that I sort of got trapped in a career. At least it was a way of making money in a time of crisis at home. Later I´ve been trying to build up another career, as an ordinary actor. But that hasn´t been easy." _

_Suddenly he looked her straight in the eye. "Look, I´m only telling you this so you know I´m not some kind of weird oddity. I´m an ordinary guy, with my heart in the right place, who just happened to get trapped in a __successful career I didn´t really choose myself. I can understand it if you suddenly don´t trust me anymore, but I hope..." He gulped. "I hope I can trust _you_ to keep this information to yourself. My work requires that I live so many double lives; my life here in Hamelburg as father Geisler´s nephew is one of the very few opportunities I have to simply be myself now and then. _Please_ don´t deprive me of that...?" _

_He was practically begging by now, and Magda knew she couldn´t __possibly reject his appeal to her secrecy. If only because he had done so much for her these past weeks. And for David. "I won´t. I won´t tell a soul. I promise," she agreed quietly. _

_The gratitude was in his eyes. "Here. Try this one." He handed her one of the wigs, in an effort to get past the awkward moment. "I brought the ones that are more or less similar to your natural colour. But you´ll have to decide which hair-dress you prefer for the upcoming months."_

_Magda tried on the wigs, and settled for one with the hair pinned up in a somewhat similar fashion as she used to wear it._

_"It feels odd," she told him, "but kind of nice to have my head covered with hair again."_

_He smiled. "Just don´t go to bed with it. Or take a bath," he told her. "And I´d advise you to take shelter when it´s raining as well."_

_She nodded. "Of course." A shy glance in his direction, and then she suddenly hugged him. "Thank you, Herr Langenscheidt. Thank you so much... For everything. And for your trust."_

.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: Please try and remember that the ethics as described in this story not necessarily coincide with my own. All I am trying to "recreate" in that matter is the moral of the era in which this story is situated.


	8. Chapter 8

_The weeks turned into months, and still no sign or word from David. Magda had long since returned to her home in the labourer´s quarter of the town. Karl Langenscheidt had helped her repairing the furniture, and by a miracle nor the Gestapo, nor "ordinary" plunderers had found the savings she had tucked away in the kitchen._

_Still, the first night she was back, the Gestapo paid her a visit. Fortunately major Feldkamp wasn´t among them, and they barely touched her this time, but the house was trashed once again in their vigorous searching._

_She kept up well as long as they were around, but as soon as their cars had disappeared out of sight she broke down in tears for belated fear._

_Karl Langenscheidt was furious when he heard about it. "The beasts, the monsters!" he muttered. "Frau Nowak, if you like, I could come and stay the nights with you whenever I can, at least until they really lose interest. I can bring a blanket and sleep on the floor in the living-room. But I don´t like the idea of you having to face those brutes on your own!"_

_Magda´s fear for the Gestapo exceeded her fear for social gossip by miles, and she gratefully accepted his chivalrous offer. So for several months Karl Langenscheidt slept regularly on the floor of Magda´s living-room. Sometimes he came early, sometimes as late as midnight or even past, and sometimes he showed up in one of his disguises. _

_The formal Fräulein Kirchhoffs and Herr Langenscheidt soon turned into Magda and Karl, but even though they became real good and close friends, there was not a spark of romance in their relationship. _

_The neighbourhood of course came to its own conclusions. But since Magda kept very much to herself, and Karl did not have many contacts in town either, they were not really aware of the slaunder being spread about especially her. _

_Magda had tried to get in touch with David´s parents. Perhaps they had a clue as to where he might have gone? But her letters returned undeliverable, and Karl´s contacts made it clear that the Nowak place stood empty. They had disappeared, like so many others. And no one knew whether they had been taken by the Gestapo, or whether they might have managed to flee._

_Magda´s own family offered that she could come back home "now that her husband had left her". But their way of expressing themselves made her very uneasy, as if they considered it a very generous act on their behalf to offer a home to a fallen daughter turning back in disgrace. And besides, she was still determined not to leave Hamelburg._

_But things were about to get even more complicated, despite the serenity with which she announced it during her final check-up for her Gestapo injuries in the summer of 1938. _

_"Dr. Bauer, I think I am with child."_

_Dr. Bauer stiffened. "Langenscheidt´s?" He _had_ heard some stories, and he knew father Geisler´s nephew had spent many a night at her place these past months. _

_But Magda was genuinely surprised by his supposition. "Karl´s? Of course not. It´s David´s baby."_

_"Are you sure?" It slipped out of his mouth before he could stop himself._

_"Of course I´m sure. I have never slept with anyone but David."_

_"Ah." Dr. Bauer took a deep breath. ´_Please let it be a false alarme,_´ he prayed fervently in his mind. ´_I don´t want to think of the consequences if...´

_But even a quick examination left him with no doubt: Magda was definitely pregnant, and judging by the size of her womb, the pregnancy was to date back to early March. And if – as Magda herself had related – this Gestapoguy hadn´t had the chance to rape her, then David Nowak was indeed the only possible father of the child._

_"Indeed, you are pregnant. I´d say about eighteen weeks."_

_Magda simply beamed._

_"But Magda, I..." He cleared his throat. "I hate to say this, but you´d better not mention to anyone that David is the father."_

_Magda´s expression darkened. "Don´t tell me I have to live another lie. To have to lie to this child about his father."_

_Dr. Bauer sighed heavily. "I am truly sorry, but it´s your only option if you want to keep the child alive."_

_"Why?" Magda demanded, protectively crossing her arms over the oh so slight curve of her belly._

_Another sigh. "According to the present law, I have to abort all babies with Jewish blood. Don´t worry; I would never even consider such a thing!" he added quickly as Magda jumped off the examination-table in alarm. "I don´t do abortions, no matter what race the baby is. A child in the womb is a living creature, a living human being, and I refuse to kill any human being. But if you go around broadcasting that you are carrying David Nowak´s child, we might as well abort it right away. For the nazis will simply take it from you as soon as it is born. I´ve heard about it from my colleagues in Düsseldorf. It´s happened quite a few times there already."_

_"No..." Magda whispered. "No, I want to have this baby. I don´t want it to die..."_

_"Then insist that you don´t know who the father is. After your brush with the Gestapo, everyone will assume that you will have been raped by one of them. Or several. That should give you an alibi. But whatever you tell people, _don´t_ mention that it might be David´s baby. Understood?"_

_Magda nodded. Speechless._

_And when she left after Dr. Bauer´s final okay on her former injuries, the doctor mumbled: "And then I didn´t even mention the damage that might have come to the child when you were so badly abused in the beginning of your pregnancy. Still," he sighed, "you haven´t had a miscarriage, so there is some hope. As long as you, Magda Nowak, keep your mouth shut about David being the father!"_

xxx

_Still, Magda felt she had to be able to be genuine to _someone_ about her fears and happiness for this child. And of course it was her good friend Karl who got to share her felicity: she told him the first time he came round again._

_The Gestapo apparently had lost their interest in her and/or in David. She had not been bothered for weeks now, and by mutual agreement they had recently decided that Magda would try and make it through the nights alone. The first few nights she had hardly slept a wink, continually listening to the frightening noises outside. But she had already started to get used to it. _

_When Karl Langenscheidt came by a few days later to enquire how she was coping all on her own, he was happily surprised by her news. "That´s great! I´m so happy for you! It means you still have something of David here with you!"_

_Magda beamed from ear to ear, but she had to tell him what Dr. Bauer had said as well._

_"He´s probably right," Karl sighed. "But as you say: if that is the price to be paid to have David´s child with you..."_

_She hugged him for his understanding. "You are such a good friend, Karl. I don´t know what I would do without you." A sudden chuckle. "I might even consider naming the baby after you!"_

_He grinned. "Or perhaps you´d better not. Before you know it, the neighbours might think that _I _am the father!"_

_His words appeared to be prophetic. As her pregnancy started to show more and more, the slaunder increased proportionately, to the extent that not even a loner like Magda herself could miss it anymore. She was called a slut and a whore, both behind her back and openly, in her face. According to the stories, she had pretended to be married for a few weeks, but when her lover had left her, she had thrown herself at a variety of men staying the night with her. Father Geisler´s nephew was frequently mentioned as one of the possible fathers of the child, and no matter how the young man denied it, no matter how stubbornly Magda insisted that she didn´t know who the father was (probably a Gestapoman, but definitely _not_ her friend Karl Langenscheidt), those stories never died down. _

_Especially the fact that she had spent the nig__ht with so many different men (Karl in some of his disguises, coming directly from work) was not easily forgotten by the people of Hamelburg, and Fräulein Magdalena Kirchhoffs was generally established as a slut. And thus shunned as much as possible. _

_Only Dr. Bauer and Karl Langenscheidt knew the truth. But they also knew they had to keep quiet in order to save the life of David Nowak´s child, in a world that was growing more anti-semitic by the day. _

_But it was especially Magda __Nowak-Kirchhoffs who paid the price, and many nights she cried herself to sleep. For her social ordeal, for the loneliness, for the lies she was forced to live... and for her dear, dear David, who seemed to have gone up in thin air. Oh, how she wanted him; needed his love, his support, his comfort... himself._

xxx

_It was 6 a.m. on the day of Christmas Eve as the door of the church creaked open and a heavily pregnant Magda Kirchhoffs entered the already decorated church. Quietly, not wanting to disturb the divine silence, she closed the door behind her and waited for her eyes to adjust to the light. Then she waddled slowly down the aisle, made a slight curtsey and crossed herself, and sat down in one of the first pews. First she had to catch her breath and stretch her back; then..._

_Carefully she eased down onto her knees and rested her arms on the back of the pew in front of her. It was not a very comfortable position, with the baby lying so heavily in her after some 43 weeks of pregnancy. But she needed to be here. She needed to pray. For the child. For David. And for strength for herself, to get her through labour. _

_Labour. _

_She shivered. She was scared. Scared to death. She would go into labour any moment now, Dr. Bauer had said yesterday. Hours and hours of pain and agony awaiting her. And she would have to face it all alone. No David to comfort her. No friends to help her; even her good friend Karl was out of town for a few weeks, overloaded as he was with engagements during the holiday-season. It would be just she herself and those labour pains and God. Oh, how she needed His strength, His comfort...!_

_She tried to shift her weight somewhat. Was it just her imagination or was the baby really heavier this morning? Or maybe it was the long walk to church; that she was just tired._

_Suddenly she felt a fatherly hand on her shoulder. "Magda my child, are you allright?"_

_Startled, she looked up into father Geisler´s kind face. "Yes. Yes, I´m allright. I´m just..." She burst into tears. "I´m just so scared...!"_

_Father Geisler helped her up on the pew and sat down beside her. "Scared of what?" he asked, though he could guess._

_"Scared to give birth..." Magda sobbed. "The pain... the child... I wish it would not have to come out; it´s so much safer inside. But he´s getting so big... so heavy..."_

_Father Geisler nodded. "Giving birth _is_ scary business, I imagine. But it´s the most natural thing in the world. You can do it. And you don´t have to go through it alone, remember? The Lord is with you, every moment. And Mother Mary knows exactly what it is to give birth. She understands your fears better than anyone else."_

_"But Mother Mary didn´t have the entire town on her back..."_

_"You think so? She got with child before she was married. A situation like that was as little accepted back then as it is today. And," he added quietly, "she, too, couldn´t tell anyone who the Father was..."_

_Magda looked up. Very slowly. "You are right, father. I never looked at it from that angle, but you are right: her being with child must have been a scandal, too." She let out a cautious sigh. "While in fact there was nothing to be ashamed of..."_

_Father Geisler pondered her words for a moment. Then he asked right out: "Magda, do _you_ have something to be ashamed of regarding this pregnancy?"_

_"No." She looked him steadily in the eye. "No, I have nothing to be ashamed of, father, save for the fact that I have lied about not knowing who the child´s father is. For I do know."_

_Father Geisler regarded her for a moment. "It´s David´s, isn´t it?" he whispered. It was more of a statement than a question._

_Magda bit her lip. And tears gathered in her eyes as she softly confirmed: "Yes. I have never slept with anyone but David. Not even those Gestapoguys have entered my body." She gulped. "One of them tried, but I kicked him so fiercely in a sensitive spot that he lost all appetite for it. And no matter what people say, I have never slept with Karl. We´re just good friends; he has never touched me. So there is absolutely no doubt that I am carrying David´s child. Even though I didn´t find out until after he was gone."_

_She shifted and tried to support her aching back. These wooden pews were not the most comfortable seats even under normal conditions, but with a heavy baby-belly they were plain _un_comfortable. On the other hand, she didn´t know how to be comfortable in _any_ position anymore._

_"I believe you, my child," father Geisler said. "But I understand we have to keep this between the two of us."_

_Magda had a wan smile as she tried to ease the pressure off her back by leaning forward. "Karl knows," she told the priest. "He has known from the beginning. And Dr. Bauer of course."_

_"And when is the baby due?"_

_"Any day now." Magda sighed. "I´m already three weeks over time. And I´m scared." She hesitated. "Will you give me your blessing, father?"_

_Father Geisler smiled. "Of course." And he laid his hands on her and said a prayer: for strength, for keeping her fears at bay, for the child´s well-being and her own – and for the beloved absent father, so very much missed, who didn´t even know he was about to become a father... "God bless you, my child."_

_Magda let out a sigh. "Thank you, father."_

_He gave her a reassuring smile. "Now you are ready to give birth, aren´t you?" he teased her._

_"I hope so." Magda shifted again. The baby was really heavy this morning..._

_"Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?" he offered. "Or would you rather stay here a while longer?"_

_"Tea sounds good." Carefully she stood and straightened her back. "I haven´t even had breakfast yet."_

_"Well, that can be arranged." He led the way through the church´s back door to the rectory. "Take a seat; I´ll have tea in a few minutes," he invited her._

_Magda carefully lowered her heavy body onto one of the chairs by the kitchen-table. But before she was actually seated, she stiffened and grabbed hold of the table. Startled, she looked down, but even if she couldn´t look over her big baby-belly, she realized all too well what she felt: fluid trickling down the inside of her thighs. And it did definitely _not_ come from her bladder!_

_Carefully she straightened up again, and the next thing she knew it felt like a big bottle of lukewarm water emptied itself from the lower part of her body. _

_"The baby," she whispered. "My water broke: the baby is coming!"_

_Father Geisler turned around in a flash. "What!?"_

_"The baby is coming. My water broke," Magda repeated. She felt strangely calm. Happy even. This was it. The waiting was over; the baby was finally coming!_

_Father Geisler paled and dropped the spoon he had in his hand. "Good gracious... You sit down," he urged her in a half panic, "I´ll go and get Frau Telemann!"_

_Magda did as she was told, and marvelled at the peace she felt. Here she was, going into that labour she had heard such hair-raising stories about, and she felt actually calm!_

_Frau Telemann lived next door, and it took father Geisler no more than a few minutes – even this early in the morning – to get her back to his kitchen with him. They found Magda groaning and hugging herself in an attempt to cope with her first contraction._

_"She´ll have to lie down," Frau Telemann said. "Do you think we could get her home?"_

_"No way," father Geisler said. "She is all alone there. She can have her baby here. Get one of the guest-rooms ready for her."_

_Frau Telemann ran upstairs, and as the contraction subsided, father Geisler asked anxiously: "Magda, are you allright?"_

_She took a deep breath. "Yeah. I´ll be allright."_

_They sat in silence till Frau Telemann came down to announce that the room was ready. But just as they helped her up the stairs, Magda was hit by the next contraction. And when they had safely installed her in the bed, father Geisler ran straight down again. "I´ll get Dr. Bauer," was all they heard from him. _

_Dr. Bauer came, examined the mother-to-be, and declared that she had definitely gone into labour, but that she still had a long way to go. "So if you´d rather be in your own bed, we can still arrange that."_

_Magda sighed. "If it´s not too much trouble, I think I´d like to stay here, as father Geisler suggested. Father?"_

_"Of course you are staying here. We´re not going to let you go through this all by yourself."_

_"Allright. I´ll come and check on her every now and then. But come and get me when the contractions come at five minute intervals, or when she feels the urge to push. Well, Magda, then I´ll say ´take care´ to you for the upcoming hours. Don´t panic and try to relax, that´s all. And stay in bed. I´ll come and see you later today."_

_The hours passed slowly. Every now and then father Geisler or Frau Telemann popped their head in to ask how it was going, but Magda was actually glad to be left to her own thoughts most of the time. It was good to know that there were people close at hand who cared, but there was just so much to think about. Thoughts about the baby she was going to have in her arms in a few hours. And thoughts about her dear David, who didn´t even know he was to become a father any moment now. _

_It wasn´t until halfway the evening before Dr. Bauer announced that the end of her agonies was coming in sight. She hardly heard him though; by then there was hardly time to catch her breath in between the fierce contractions. All she could think of __now was surviving the pain. And finally, at less than half an hour from Christmas Day, the fragile cry of a newborn echoed through the room._

_"It´s a girl," Dr. Bauer __told the exhausted new mother. He cleared his throat. "And I can tell you one thing: there cannot be a doubt that she is a daughter of David Nowak´s!"_

xxx

_Half an hour later the churchbells sang to announce the midnight Christmas-mass. The church was absolutely packed – as always on Christmas Eve._

_And as father Geisler met all the happy faces in the congregation before him, he decided to tell the beautiful story of Jesus´s birth from a slightly different angle this time: indicating the scandal Mother Mary was facing in becoming with child before she was even married, and not being at liberty to make public who the child´s Father was..._

xxx

_"I don´t care where you get the money from! Just pay me the rent you owe me, okay? And if you can´t pay, you can´t live here; it´s that simple."_

_"But...!"_

_"I´ll give you until Saturday. If I don´t have the money by then...!"_

_Angry footsteps left the house, and the front door was slammed shut. _

_And Magda was nearly in tears. She still felt so weak. "I´m sorry, Rosemarie," she whispered to the child, peacefully asleep in her arms. "I´m so sorry..."_

_When Magda had returned home with her little daughter after her obligatory ten days bedrest, she knew there was trouble ahead. For what would she and the baby live on? _

_With such a young infant to take care of, she could not possibly go out and get a job – if she´d have any more luck in finding one now than she had been so far. By living extremely sober this past year she had managed to stretch her savings to last for much longer than she had originally anticipated. But by now, they were just about completed. She could breastfeed the child, that wouldn´t be the problem. But what would she feed herself with?_

_Warily she lowered herself with Rosemarie in the old wicker-chair Karl had found for her at a Düsseldorf fleemarket a few months ago, just about when her baby-belly had begun to be uncomfortable. Gently she rocked back and forth, pondering the problem for the umpteenth time. _

_Where was she to get the money to pay the rent? To buy food? Simply to live? Or were she and Rosemarie to live on the street, doomed to starvation? How could she ever justify that to David: to have his dear little girl die in the streets?! Why did she have to go through this all by herself anyway?! Why couldn´t he be with her, let her come and join him, wherever he was! Why didn´t he at least _write_?! _

_She hugged the little child close. "I´d wish your Daddy was here..." she __sobbed desperately. "He´d take care of us, and make sure we wouldn´t have to starve. He is the sweetest man you will ever meet. Oh, if only I knew where he was...!" _

_At that moment the child´s godfather showed himself in. __"Hey, what´s the matter?" He knelt down in front of her._

_Magda brushed her tears away as well as she could. "I just don´t know what to do. The landlord has been around every day this week for the rent. But I don´t have it, Karl; I don´t have it! I don´t have a single pfennig left! And this morning he threatened to throw me out if I don´t pay by Saturday. But where am I to get money?"_

_Karl Langenscheidt gave her a warm smile. "Don´t you worry, that´s what godfathers are for. I´ll pay that rent. Can´t have my little godchild thrown out in the street, can I?"_

_Magda groaned. "Karl, that´s very sweet of you, but I don´t want charity. I want to be able to provide for my own daughter – I just don´t see how I can do it, especially when she is still so small."_

_"Far too small to be without her mother," Karl agreed. "And you, too, need some time to recover. And to be with Rosemarie. You can´t go out working yet."_

_"But what do I do?!"_

_"Listen." Karl pulled up the other chair. "I´ll support you these first months. Make sure you don´t starve and can pay your rent and so on."_

_"But I do not _want_ charity!"_

_"It´s not," Karl stated matter-of-factly. "I´m just making sure my godchild has a roof over her head and gets properly fed. And if _you_ don´t eat properly, _she_ won´t get fed properly. Look at it as a godfather´s prerogative: I´m supposed to spoil the child, nicht wahr? And I wouldn´t even qualify it as "spoiling" to provide my godchild with the basic necessities: her mother, food, and a roof over her head."_

_Magda couldn´t help a watery smile. "If you put it that way... But what about you? I don´t want you to go starving in order to provide for us."_

_He smiled bashfully. "Don´t you worry about that: I´m not exactly a pauper. One of the __basic advantages of being known as a famous female impersonator is that I can pretty much set my own salary-standards. They´re fighting to engage me anyway. But I can understand your wish to be independent. So how about we get you a job in a few months? A job you can do at home; sewing or something?"_

_"_You_ could get me a job?"_

_"Well, I have more opportunities to ask around than you have right now."_

_That was true._

_"So with the worst of your financial troubles solved, how about letting me get acquainted with my little godchild?"_

_Magda smiled. "Of course." She struggled to get up with the baby in her arms, but Karl was already there and simply took the baby from her like an expert. _

_"Where did you learn that?" Magda demanded with some envy. "You´re far more skilled with a baby than I am!"_

_"My sisters," he replied softly while drinking in Rosemarie´s features. "I´ve got eleven sisters, remember? All older than me, all married. So I´ve got nephews and nieces by the bulk." His expression was as soft as his voice. "She´s a beautiful little baby, Magda. I am proud to be her godfather."_

xxx

_Life went on. Little Rosemarie Kirchhoffs was a happy, pleasant baby, and Magda adored her little daughter. _

_Karl Langenscheidt had indeed found her a job as a seemstress when Rosemarie was about three months old, so she wasn´t as dependent on her friend as in the first months of Rosemarie´s life. Still, he regularly slipped her some extra money to make life a bit more colourful as he said: "You provide her with bread, and I´d like to spoil her with marmalade on her bread."_

_And then the war came. In the beginning it was just a black shadow in the background. Life in Hamelburg went on pretty much as usual, and the fighting front was far away. _

_But then all the young men were called under arms, to go and fight at the front. Fathers and sons left, and were never heard from again. Karl Langenscheidt was one of the very few of his age in the area who managed to stay out of the military, although his explanation, "because of my acting skills", was merely raising more questions with Magda. _

_But she had long since learned not to ask too many questions. Safer for her, and safer for others. Still, no one could stop her from thinking and combining facts. And combining a few things from the past and the present, she suspected that Karl was involved in a kind of forbidden resistance movement to bring down the Führer. _

_As Karl Langenscheidt grew quieter, his visits grew less frequent. It happened occasionally that she didn´t see him for weeks, much to Rosemarie´s (and her own) disappointment, for the girl was very fond of her uncle Karl. She once even asked why Mummy didn´t marry him, so they could all live happily together. _

_Remarks like that hurt. From the very beginning Magda had tried to acquaint Rosemarie with her father: telling her about what kind of a person he was, what he looked like, how much he loved them, but that he couldn´t be with them because of the war. But in her innocence, the girl could persist in asking unanswerable questions: Daddy´s name, where he was now and where he came from, what was his job, what was he doing for the war... Rosemarie sure was a pretty smart kid, but Magda couldn´t quite trust a four-year-old not to repeat what she knew about her father... _

_But what hurt the most was the fact that not just Rosemarie, but she herself, too, sometimes wondered if David really existed. Even if they really had been (or were) married. As the years passed, always struggling to make ends meet, raising a daughter and doing sewing work, the memory of David Nowak seemed to fade into a dream. And that scared her more than anything. She didn´t want to lose her faith in him. She wanted to keep believing that he loved her, and that he would come back to her one day. Or that he´d let her know where he was, so that she might finally join him with Rosemarie. _

_But with not a single sign of life from him in all these years, it was getting harder and harder to keep believing. Believing that he´d come back as he promised to. Especially since everyone else seemed to have forgotten..._

_Hamelburg had known Dr. David Nowak for only a few weeks. And that was years ago, so by now he was hardly remembered anymore. And with so many mothers having to raise their children without the father present, Magda´s scandalous status as an unmarried mother started to fade. As much as David was forgotten, as much people seemed to forget that little Rosemarie Kirchhoffs´s father was registered as "unknown". A vague shadow of scandal remained, but Magda discovered that – oh so slowly – she was beginning to be accepted in the town. _

_That was a positive side of the war. A definite negative development was the Allied response to Hitler´s expansive dreams. Magda was glad the other countries fought back, to try and defeat that madman in Berlin. But their tactics she could do without: bombing-raids on the very nearby Hamelburg industrial area, as well as saboteurs blowing up everything useful in sight made for very scary nights. Rosemarie had always slept with her mother, but with all the fires and explosions lately, the girl lay paralyzed stiff for fear in her mother´s arms every night, crying for terror with every new explosion. At least, if a stray bomb would hit their house, they would both be gone..._

_In the end, not even Karl Langenscheidt´s acting skills had saved him from being drafted into the military. Fortunately he got assigned to a pretty safe post: as guard in the nearby POW-camp. According to him, it wasn´t such a bad job: his commanding officer was humane and no nazi, the contact with the foreign prisoners gave him a chance to practise his languages, and every now and then he could exchange something for Red Cross goodies that had long grown unattainable in Germany. Like sweets and chocolate bars, which he always saved for Rosemarie._

_But with more and more men hauled off to a certain death at the front, the Hamelburg school suddenly found itself with three vacancies for teachers. And since Rosemarie had just started kindergarten, which meant she was at school most of the day, too, Magda jumped at the opportunity, applied for the job and got assigned to teach the third grade. Financially it made life a lot easier for a few years, but in practice, the general scarcity of everything did not permit them to take their life to a higher standard anyway._

_And then came the fire..._

_._

_-----------------------------------------------------------------_

A/N: Yeah, yeah, I´ll return to March 1945 now...


	9. Chapter 9

"I am leaving Rosemarie in your care, father. Please make sure she gets to safety. But I am staying here; I can´t leave. David would never find me."

Hammond gulped. David... Rosemarie... Mary-Rose...

"But what good is it going to do to either of them if you get yourself deliberately killed tonight?!" father Geisler pointed out to her.

Magda´s mouth was a thin line. "It doesn´t matter. I have to be here in case he comes back."

Father Geisler raised his hands in despair. "For heaven´s sake, Magda, don´t be so stubborn! I´ve always admired you for your tenacity, but now you´re really taking it too far!"

Magda just looked at him without a word.

"Look." Father Geisler lowered his voice. "I do not like to point this out to you, but there is no certainty whatsoever that your husband is still alive."

Magda paled. "Don´t say that! He _promised_ he´d come back!"

"I know he did. But why would he come back right now? It´s no safer for him here today than it was six, seven years ago. It would make much more sense for him to come back as soon as the nazis are driven away. And the way things are going, that will not be much longer now. So why would he take the risk of coming back _now_, when he´ll be able to come back in all safety in just a few weeks?"

"But..." Magda´s lip trembled; she seemed very young all of a sudden. "But what if he _does_ come back tonight?"

"Then he´ll get killed in the air-raid," Hammond answered quietly.

She turned to stare at him, and he blushed.

"I´m sorry. I shouldn´t have listened in, but..." Hammond took a deep breath for courage. "I couldn´t help myself. The names you mentioned: David and Rosemarie... Our first-born was a son: David. He died of the Spanish flu when he was less than four months old." He swallowed; the memory still hurt. "And our daughter is called Mary-Rose. She is seven now, though I haven´t seen her for three whole years. But Mrs. Kirchhoffs..." He gulped as he took her hands awkwardly in his: "Of course I don´t know your situation, but if I´d come home after all these years, only to find out that my wife had been killed, I´d... I´d be devastated. So please don´t make your husband go through such a thing if you don´t have to!"

He saw the doubt, already half convinced, in her big brown eyes. "You can always come back here tomorrow, after the raid, if this is where you agreed to wait for him. But please don´t give him the grief of finding you dead after all these years..."

A trembling sigh from the lady. "Perhaps you are right, sir. Perhaps you are. It´s just that... I have waited for him for seven years. I´ve never left Hamelburg in all those years; afraid as I am to miss him. And now... If indeed he does come back tonight... and I´m not here..."

A short silence, broken by father Geisler´s voice: "And if he does come back tonight, and instead you _are_ here... then you´ll both get killed in the air-raid. Is that what you want for his daughter: to be left an orphan without any relatives? Do you think that is what _he_ would want for her?"

They both looked at her apprehensively, the priest and the American. And finally there was a slow shake of the head. "No. That is not what he´d want for her."

Paul Hammond gently squeezed her hands. "Good on you. And you can always leave a note for your husband, just in case he does happen to come back tonight. That way he´ll understand why you aren´t here waiting for him. And perhaps he´d even make it to safety in time."

She nodded; then her attention was drawn by something behind him.

Hammond turned around, and noticed a young girl – about Mary-Rose´s age – with long plaits standing in the doorway to the living-room. In one hand she held a small rugsack, and she was looking at them rather wonderingly. Almost suspiciously.

"Is that your daughter?" he asked quietly.

Frau Kirchhoffs nodded.

"A beautiful young lady. She looks just like you."

A bitter smile. "That´s what people always say. I think she looks more like her father; she´s got his eyes." She pulled back her hands and walked over to the girl in the doorway.

"Danke vielmals," father Geisler whispered behind him. "She is stubborn enough to have stuck to her resolve and stay behind if you hadn´t forced her to look at the situation from her husband´s point of view."

Paul Hammond turned back to him. "So what happened? Where is her husband? At the front?"

Father Geisler had a slight shrug. "It´s a long story, exemplary of so many others." He sighed. "Her husband is Jewish. He had to flee for the Gestapo, before the war even started. And before she knew she was with child. She hasn´t heard from him since, but as you heard yourself, she still believes he´ll come back one day. But to be honest: I doubt if he´s still alive." Another sigh. "Well, and a lot of problems connected with the situation of course. I wouldn´t quite say she´s had it easy here in town, even apart from the war-related problems we´ve all had to suffer."

Hammond nodded, but at that moment their conversation was interrupted by Carter addressing father Geisler: "Father, do you know if they warned the zookeeper as well?"

Newkirk heard him, too. "Carter..."

Carter turned to him. "You want Freddy to get killed?! I thought we all agreed to put him up for a medal!"

"Who is Freddy?" father Geisler asked rather puzzled.

"The chimpansee at the zoo," Hammond explained. "He has been very valuable in some of the Colonel´s missions." (1)

"And what about the other animals?" Carter insisted. "It´s not _their_ fault there´s a war on, is it? So we can´t just leave them, to get them all killed!"

Father Geisler shook his head. "I don´t know when you were last at the zoo, my son, but there aren´t all that many animals left."

"How come?" Carter demanded. "You guys didn´t _eat_ them, did you?"

"No, we didn´t eat them. But quite a few got killed when a stray bomb accidentally hit the zoo."

"Yeah, that´s when we met Freddy," Carter agreed.

"Yes. But from what I understand from Lorenz, the zookeeper, both the frequent bombing-raids on the town, and especially the fire this winter have been very stressful for the animals. Many have died of stress-related problems. And then the scarcity of food, especially these past months..."

Carter gulped. "That makes it even more unfair to simply let them get killed tonight. Where is that Lorenz-guy; does he live near here?"

"Two blocks down the street. The zoo is practically in his backyard. But..."

Carter knew enough. With his silver bells tinkling he gallopped out of the house, in slalom around a few startled kids, and before anyone could stop him he raced off down the street in his colourful Piper costume.

"Hey! Carter?" a surprised Hogan called after him.

But Carter didn´t hear him: he was already down the block.

"That bloody fool..." Newkirk spluttered.

xxx

There was no response to his urgent knocking, nor to his calling. That left him with only one thing to do.

So Carter jumped over the hedge, gallopped past the little house and towards the high fence that separated Mr. Lorenz´s backyard from the Hamelburg Zoo.

There was a door in the fence, but it was locked. The official entrance to the zoo was somewhere on the other side, Carter knew, but he had no time to take the long way around. Instead, he decided to climb the fence. If this Lorenz-guy wasn´t somewhere with the animals, then the least he – Andrew J. Carter – could do was setting the poor creatures free, thus giving them the opportunity to get to safety by themselves.

With his fourth try he finally managed to jump up high enough to get hold of the top of the fence. Quickly he pulled himself up, avoiding the barbed wire on top as best as he could, though he couldn´t prevent it from ripping his colourful costume at the back of the knee. Fortunately it was but a small tear.

He jumped down, landing on all four in the high-grown grass. At least the hat sat as glued to his head; he hadn´t lost it yet.

Quickly he started zigzagging in between the cages. Father Geisler was right: most of them stood empty. Now where was that Mr. Lorenz?

"Mr. Lorenz! Mr. Lorenz!!" His voice echoed between the trees. "Mr. Lorenz!!"

"Hier!" came a muffled reply to his right, from the hut in the ostrich-pen. And a moment later the old man showed his face.

His eyes widened in surprise as he caught sight of the colourful jester on the other side of the fence. "Donnerwetter... wer sind Sie?"

"I´m the Pied Piper. Are you going to let the animals out?"

Herr Lorenz gulped audibly, and eyed the lanky figure in front of him from feathered hat to curled toe and back. "The Pied Piper?"

"Yes. The Rattenfänger, remember? Are you going to let the animals out?"

Slowly, Herr Lorenz shook his head. He seemed to decide that the foreigner outside the ostrich-pen had lost his mind. Which meant he´d better play along with his fancy.

But Carter shot up at his apparent denial. "You´re _not_ going to let them out? You´re going to let them get killed?!"

Herr Lorenz´s shoulders slumped. "Well, what can I do? I´m giving them all the food that is left. At least they´ll have one last good meal before they´ll get killed tonight."

Carter nodded. "That´s good. That means they won´t be so hungry that they´d start on the people."

Herr Lorenz blinked. "The people?!"

Carter put his hands on his hips, imitating the confidence of his childhood hero. "Yes. I want the animals to follow me, too, when I start playing on my harmonica. I´ll take them to the happy land in peace on the other side, too. Where everybody is friends with everybody, and there are no more bombing-raids."

Herr Lorenz stared at him in astonishment. "Herr Pied Piper, do you realize what you are asking?! I still have a Siberian tiger here, and a lion! You want to turn them loose on the innocent people of Hamelburg!?"

A grin from Carter. "They might come in handy to guard that Schwein Randall."

Not even a flabbergasted Herr Lorenz could help chuckling at that thought, but he quickly sobered and shook his head. "I´d like nothing more than to save these poor animals, but I´m afraid your..."

Carter grabbed the bars of the fence between them. "Now listen, Mr. Lorenz, I´m the Pied Piper, right? The Rattenfänger as you call it. So _I_ get to decide who will follow me for old king Dolf´s punishment. And I say the animals are coming, too. It´s not their fault there´s a war on."

Herr Lorenz sighed. "You´re so right..." He pondered a moment, clearly weighing the odds whether to have some faith in the colourful fool´s plans, or whether the guy was just plain crazy. Apparently he decided for the former: "But how are we going to do this?"

"How many animals do you have?"

"One lion, one tiger, two ostriches, a zebra, two chimpansees, and a goat and a few rabbits in the mini-farm."

"Good. Then just leave their cages open. And all the gates in the fence. And when I start playing my harmonica in the street, they can decide for themselves whether they want to follow me, or whether they want to find their own way to freedom." He frowned. "But it might be a good idea if you could have that lion and the tiger on a lead – just to be on the safe side. And I´d like to take Freddy with me right away; he´s sort of our mascotte."

"Freddy?"

"The chimp. He sought refuge in our camp when the zoo was bombed."

Another sigh from Herr Lorenz. "Well, I suppose we could try. At least they´d have a chance that way. Instead of being bombed to pieces in their cage tonight."

A rustling in the bushes behind the outer fence, and there was an annoyed Colonel Hogan. "Carter! What are you doing here?! We need you back at the orphanage; the kids are about ready to leave!"

Carter winked at Herr Lorenz. "Coming, sir! I´ll just go and get Freddy!"

xxx

Back at the camp, the guys from barracks 2 were almost done setting charges in their extensive tunnel-system.

"We´re going to blow up the whole camp this way," Garth observed as he set the timer on yet another pack of explosives.

"So much the better," LeBeau commented.

But then he caught sight of their stockroom full of German uniforms where Kinch was setting the charges. And his face suddenly brightened.

"Hey Kinch," he beckoned the black sergeant over. "What do you say we let that dog Randall and his mates put on Boche uniforms? And then we let the guard-dogs watch them!"

Kinch grinned from ear to ear. "You´re a devil, you know that? But I like it!"

Quickly they gathered about a dozen uniforms – mostly Gestapo and brass – and passed them to the guys upstairs. LeBeau´s explanation caused quite some snickers among the men, and the five of them who had volunteered to guard Randall & Co brought over the uniforms to the cooler and proposed the plan to Captain Martin.

The Captain wore a naughty grin on his face when LeBeau had finished explaining. "Excellent idea. And you might want to take their papers and dogtags away from them, too. That way they´ll have to stay with us in order to be able to prove to the Allies that they really are on our side – if you could say so at all."

The five men entered the cooler to prepare their prisoners for the exodus. Kinch and LeBeau were the ones addressing Randall in his cell: "Put this on." Kinch handed him a Gestapo general´s uniform through the bars.

"It should suit you perfectly," LeBeau added with a touch of irony in his voice.

Randall looked at the black uniform in disgust. "What are you planning?"

"Just a little precaution to make sure you won´t try to escape when we´re leaving camp today," LeBeau chimed.

"Leave camp? Where are we going?"

"None of your business. Just put on the uniform."

"Never! I will not go around wearing a German uniform!"

"Oh, not just a _German_ uniform, mon ami. A Gestapo uniform! And a general´s, too!"

Randall turned away from them. "Never."

LeBeau leaned casually against the bars of the cell. "Oh, that´s fine with us. Isn´t it, Kinch?"

"It sure is," Kinch agreed. "If you refuse to put on that uniform, we cannot take you along."

"Fine!" Randall growled. "As if I care!"

"And you can get yourself nicely killed in the Führer´s little bombing-raid tonight," LeBeau happily announced. "Not that I care; you don´t deserve any better, but... Oh well, we´ll just have to tell the Kommandant you refused to come with us. And Mr. Hitler will be happy: then at least the raid on Hamelburg will have _one_ victim."

He walked away, followed by Kinchloe.

But they heard Randall rushing to the bars almost right away. "Hey! Wait! What bombing-raid; what are you talking about?"

Kinch and LeBeau exchanged a grin at the scared tone in Randall´s voice.

"Pity he decided to come around," LeBeau muttered.

.

.

(1) See the episode "Monkey Business"


	10. Chapter 10

The bushy woods at the south end of the Hamelburg bridge were bustling with activity. Two trucks and a staff-car were operating a shuttle service between the camp and the bridge, delivering a few sick and invalids with one or two helpers at every arrival. Lt. J.B. Miller made sure the invalids were placed in a row close to the bridge, ready to be carried off to freedom.

Every now and then Dr. Bauer´s car and the other truck from camp arrived with a load of patients from the town´s hospital as well. And in the midst of all that, hundreds of former prisoners roamed about. Some kept their injured mates company, others sat talking quietly with the small camp-fires they had started.

But most of them just wandered about among the trees, the bushes and their comrades. They could scarcely fathom the idea of finally leaving their prison behind. No more barbed wire fences, no more guard towers, no more threatening machine guns, no more impediments to their freedom. They were on their way out, and soon they´d have complete freedom of movement again.

The sheer thought was a marvel in itself. To be able to go out, whenever you want, wherever you want. To go and spend time with family and friends, to go to a shop or a pub or a restaurant. On holidays. Being home. To simply have food in abundance. To go back to work after so many years of mostly hanging around. To be free...

Langenscheidt was one of the shuttle-truck drivers, and when his colleague Beauchamp caught him for the fourth time anxiously looking out over the bridge towards the town, the Frenchman asked: "What are you looking for, Sergeant?"

Langenscheidt let out a sigh. "A friend of mine from town. She is so pigheaded; she could decide to stay behind. And if she does, I have to go and get her."

"Why would she stay behind?" Beauchamp asked in surprise.

Langenscheidt shrugged. "It is a long story. She promised her husband that she would wait for him in Hamelburg. That was seven years ago. She has not heard from him since he left, but she has never left Hamelburg in all that time. Not even for a day. Just in case he would come back."

Beauchamp smiled. "It sounds like that Lili Marlene-song."

Langenscheidt looked at him in puzzlement. But as he recalled the lyrics to Lili Marlene, he chuckled. "You are right, Sergeant. It is a bit like Lili Marlene. Unfortunately..." He sighed. "This one is for real."

xxx

Carter just couldn´t bring himself to it. Taking Freddy with him, and leaving the chimp´s mate behind, to take his chances on his own?

"Oh, come along then," he sighed.

The other chimp happily jumped in his arms, and so – with one chimpansee on his back and another one in his arms – he sought his way back to Mr. Lorenz and the Colonel.

On the way he passed the mini-farm. And as the goat looked up from his meal, Carter just couldn´t resist. With some difficulty – because of the two chimps – he opened the low gate to the farm. "Come one, guys. It´s time to go."

The goat and the three rabbits followed him readily, and so, stumbling on one of the rabbits who insisted on coming underfoot with him, he staggered towards the door in the fence.

Both Hogan and Mr. Lorenz felt their jaw drop as they saw him approaching.

"Seems like I picked the perfect guy for the piper-job," Hogan whispered in awe.

"Mr. Lorenz, what´s the other chimp´s name?" Carter asked rather muffled as Freddy held on to his chin.

"Alma," the zookeeper answered automatically. He shook his head. "Good heavens, you´re a natural with animals!"

Carter grinned bashfully. "I know. It´s always been like that. Perhaps I should just forget about the drugstore and start my own zoo instead. You know, I´ve..."

Hogan shook his head. "Later, Carter. We have to get going."

xxx

Back at the orphanage they saw father Geisler, Hammond, Newkirk and two of the ladies already busy in lining up the children. A cheer – partly of excitement, partly of a little fear – went up as the children discovered their Rattenfänger coming down the street carrying two monkeys, and with a goat and a few rabbits on his heels.

Some of the kids ran ahead to meet him. "Werden Sie auch die Tiere mitnehmen? Das ist aber nett!" one of the boys proclaimed.

The kids tried to pet Freddy and Alma and the goat, and a few girls picked up the rabbits. And so, surrounded by animals and children, the Pied Piper approached his victims for the day.

"Right, here´s what we´ll do," Hogan explained. "The ladies and the youngest kids will go in the truck; Hammond, you can drive."

Nods all around.

"Paul, you got Felix?" Carter anxiously inquired.

Hammond carefully patted his pocket. "Right here, Carter. And here´s your harmonica."

Carter didn´t have a hand free to take it, so Newkirk hastily stepped in to take over one of the chimps. "Hey mate, how are you doing? Recognize me?"

He got a shrieking answer, and Carter told him: "That is Alma. I just couldn´t take Freddy with me and leave her behind."

"They´re probably lovers," Newkirk agreed. "It would be cruel to separate them. What do you say, Alma?"

A high-pitched monkey-shriek was his reply, and Freddy bobbed his head up and down as if to heartily approve of Newkirk´s words. And everybody laughed.

"Allright, everybody in line," Hogan ordered. "And kids, you know what to do, right? Just like in the story: you sing and dance to the music. And whatever happens, you follow the Rattenfänger. Okay?"

"Jaaa!" the children cheered.

"Let´s go then. Pied Piper, are you ready?"

Carter shrugged Freddy down from his back. "Right. But Colonel, what do I play?"

"Anything you like. Just keep playing."

Newkirk took hold of Freddy´s paw, too, and the friendly chimp jumped up and down with excitement.

And Carter, he took a good, deep breath.

Then he slowly lifted the small harmonica to his lips and...

The children cheered as the first hesitant notes trilled through the street. Carter started walking – dancing, or even skipping would soon leave him out of breath if he needed to keep playing as well.

And on the happy notes of Turkey in the Straw, the cheering band of children followed him. They skipped and laughed and clapped their hands. It was a real feast, and a real joy to watch.

Hogan, standing at the side, crossed his arms. A smile tugged at his lips. These kids, pale and thin as they were after a long winter full of hardship and hunger, these kids still knew what happiness was. They could still sing and dance and play. As if war did not exist; as if the whole world was at peace. Yet many of these kids didn´t even have a memory of peace: a world at war was the only world they knew.

But look at them now. Eyes shining, cheeks all rosy... and a heart that grasped every occasion for joy and happiness in the dark world around them.

All of a sudden he wondered what would become of them. Orphans, the lot of them. In an impoverished and totally destroyed country. Who would take care of them? Would anyone higher up care about these kids – Germany´s future – once the country would try to raise from the ashes once more? Or would all the money, all the efforts, go to the revival of the economy?

And if a small town like Hamelburg had so many orphans of war... how many would there be in all of Germany?

A sudden extra loud cheer arose him from his reverie. The group had by now proceeded down the street, and there, behind the conifer hedge of the zookeeper´s house, two bald heads on a long neck, and a black and white horsehead came dancing towards the street.

"It´s the animals from the zoo! He´s taking the animals from the zoo! He´s a _real _Rattenfänger!" the children cried.

Indeed: proudly the two ostriches stepped onto the road, followed by the zebra. They joined in the procession, walking next to the kids and a few dogs and cats Hogan now noticed had joined the group as well. Apparently Carter was casting some real spell here with his music...

Some of the kids tried to pet the newcomers, but others pushed them along: "Come on, we´ve got to follow the Rattenfänger!" And as it was, the animals followed the Rattenfänger as well.

When Carter turned the corner toward the Hauptstraße out of town, and the music of Turkey in the Straw came fainter and fainter, Hogan spurred into action again.

"Right. You ladies in the truck. And those little kids. You got all the blankets you need?"

Everyone climbed inside. There was room enough for more people, so passers-by on their way to the bridge were invited to get into the truck as well.

And finally, near the stroke of three, Hammond turned the key to start the now heavily loaded truck. Out of a quickly emptying Hamelburg. On the way to freedom and safety.

xxx

"Get moving." Kinch pointed his Luger at Randall. "And no funny business. Understood?"

He pushed the point of his gun into Randall´s back as the fallen officer slowly moved out of his cell.

His clique and his sympathizers were already out in the corridor, he saw. Like him, all dressed in high ranking German uniforms: Gestapo, SS, Abwehr, Wehrmacht...

Captain Martin was standing at the exit. And every German-dressed prisoner and his guard stopped a few moments in front of him before stepping outside.

"Is he taking notes or something?" Randall grunted to Kinch.

But Kinch deigned not to reply. Randall would find out soon enough when it was his turn.

The American captain looked at him with stern disdain when Randall stepped up to him. He held out his hand. "Your dogtags, please."

Randall straightened haughtily. "Never. Don´t you know, man, that a soldier is not allowed to remove those? Ever?"

Martin looked him calmly in the eye. "Exactly. That´s why I´m taking them for now. Your dogtags, please."

Randall spit on the floor. "Never."

"Fine." Martin pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket, and while Kinch undid the safety-catch of his gun, he swiftly shackled Randall´s hands behind his back. For a moment Randall tried to fight him, but the gunpoint pressing into his back, together with Kinch´s quiet voice saying: "You live because of the Kommandant, Randall. Not because of me," were enough to remind him of the awkward situation he was in.

"Now let me take your dogtags," Martin´s voice drooled sarcastically.

Randall´s eyes shot daggers, but there was nothing he could do to stop the insolent captain.

"Right. Take him outside, Sergeant. He stays cuffed."

With the gun still in his back, Randall was pushed outside. He blinked at the bright afternoon-light.

There were his men. All of them dressed in German uniforms and guarded by two armed men. And... by a fiercely barking dog each.

A tiny little Frenchman stepped up to him. He looked down on the little fellow with disdain – how could anyone let such a miserable little creature fight a war?!

"I warn you, _colonel_." The dwarf´s excessive emphasis on his rank made it clear that he had little respect for him. "Don´t try anything funny. Those dogs are killers. And they happened to be trained _not_ to like anyone wearing a German uniform."

Randall looked at the dog the little guy had on a short leash. And he froze.

A sickening madness blinked in the beast´s eyes. The growl was deep and dangerous, and the curled upper lip revealed a set of horribly blinking teeth.

"Good boy," Schultz said as he saw the fear on Randall´s face grow. "Now you come with me, sir. And I warn you: I may not _look_ like a ruthless killer, but I´ve already eliminated one guy who was torturing the Kommandant. I promise you that I will not hesitate to do it again!"

One hasty glance at the puffy face next to him was enough to convince Randall that the big sergeant was not bluffing.

Not at all.


	11. Chapter 11

Three o´clock.

Only one half hour left.

But where was everyone?

The camp had been evacuated. Dozens and dozens of people from town had joined them here at the bridge. But there was no sign of the Kommandant, the only man who knew the way out of the valley.

Nor was there any sign of Hogan or of the men who went into town with him.

And where was Maryse? And Uncle Frank? Magda? And Rosemarie?

He hadn´t had the chance to go into town since the fire. With one crisis after another at the camp, none of the guards had been able to go out on a pass.

But how were they all doing? Were they even alive?

Anxiously, Sergeant Langenscheidt watched the road. In small groups people swiftly walked towards him, carrying whatever belongings they didn´t want to leave behind. Acquaintances, most of them, oh yes. After all, Hamelburg was but a small town.

And friends. But the four people in town he cared most for were not among them. Not yet. Where were they? If they didn´t show up, he...!

He took a deep breath to steady himself. Perhaps he shouldn´t worry too much. It wasn´t 3.30 yet. And Uncle Frank was a level-headed man.

And besides, he knew that only a few weeks ago they had been allright. When his uncle had attended the handing over of the camp to Hogan, they had had a few moments to exchange the latest news. So he _knew_ that Magda and Rosemarie had found shelter at the orphanage after the fire had deprived them of the little they had. And he _knew_ that Maryse was practically living at the orphanage as well, to help out.

But that had been _before_ Randall and his madmen had taken over the area. So...?

But they would come. Uncle Frank would see to that. He wouldn´t leave all those kids to get killed in the air-raid.

Suddenly he pricked his ears. Music? And could that be children´s voices?!

Indeed: around the last curve of the track to town appeared a jostling group of children and animals, led by a colourful clown playing some musical instrument.

For a moment he was stunned. What he saw there was the saga of the Rattenfänger of Hameln come to life. In the middle of a war, the Rattenfänger had come to save the children and lead them to a happy land in peace?!

But as more people gathered around gaping at the unusual festive sight, in the magic of the moment Langenscheidt suddenly took off to meet the happy band of children.

He realized that this was probably some scheme of Hogan´s. But he also knew that there was probably a young girl with long plaits among them that he could not possibly allow to go missing by following _any_ Rattenfänger. Not only for her mother´s sake, but for his own as well!

And indeed: a happy cry shot up between the children´s cheerful chatter: "Uncle Karl!"

A few kids were pushed aside, a horse was expertly dodged, and there came the little figure with her plaits flying.

Langenscheidt caught her in his arms, and they hugged each other tight as he lifted her up.

"I´ve missed you," Rosemarie smiled as she loosened her grip around his neck.

He kissed her on the forehead. "I´ve missed you, too. Are you allright?"

A happy nod. "Did you know it´s exactly fivehundred years ago that the Rattenfänger punished king Dolf for not keeping his promise? That´s what we´re playing now. And we have a real Rattenfänger. Look: all the animals are following him, too! From the zoo, and they even joined us from the farms we passed!"

Langenscheidt frowned. "King Dolf?"

"Yes! King Dolf of Hamelburg!"

Hogan, Langenscheidt realized with a sudden grin. "And where is this Rattenfänger taking you?"

"To a happy land of peace on the other side of the mountain."

Langenscheidt chuckled. Clearly, Rosemarie took the whole thing completely serious. "Well, let´s follow him then!" He lowered the girl to the ground and picked up his garrison cap. "Is mama coming, too?"

"Yes."

"And Fräulein Maryse? And father Geisler?"

Rosemarie nodded. "They´re coming in the car, with the little kids."

She laid her hand in his, and happily skipped along as they joined the other kids again.

And the animals.

Langenscheidt noticed it was Carter, one of Hogan´s team, who was playing for Rattenfänger. But he really did seem to have some kind of spell over the animals. Not only were there two ostriches, three horses and a foal, six cows, two monkeys, a zebra, three goats, a bunch of chickens, and a handful of both cats and dogs happily walking along, the poor guy stumbled over a set of rabbits at every other step as well. The accidental kick the cuddly animals got in the process clearly did little to discourage them, for they insisted on coming underfoot with him.

Talk about trusting someone, he thought...

xxx

Just before they reached the other side of the bridge, a camp-truck pulled up and slowed down behind them. Hogan and one of the men from his barracks were driving, he noticed.

The car didn´t overtake them, but quietly crept along behind. And when they reached the woods, and the colourful Rattenfänger with a sigh lowered his harmonica in favour of a canteen of water, the car stopped and Hogan jumped out.

"You help the people to get off the truck," he ordered Hammond, and then he stepped up on a stone at the wayside.

"Okay, listen everyone." He waited a moment for everyone´s attention.

But he didn´t get any. Suddenly the goats started running around with a loud _baah_, which started off the cows´ sound system as well. The horses whinnied and nervously stepped back and forth between the many people in the shrub. The rabbits flew here and there, tripping more than one person on the way, and suddenly the dogs discovered there were cats around, and started to chase them. On top of that, Freddy and Alma shrieked their lungs out and quickly climbed up in a tree.

"Blimey, Carter, get playing!" Newkirk scolded. "I don´t know how you do it, but you seem to have some kind of spell over these animals!"

"Hey, can I please have a drink first?" Carter protested. "Boy, playing the harmonica for so long, without a break, I´m thirsty!"

"But don´t you see what´s happening? This is going to end in utter chaos if you don´t keep playing that ruddy harmonica!"

"I´ll take over for now," came a quiet voice from behind him.

Newkirk turned around. It was young Ben Garth who pulled out his own harmonica and sat down on a treestump. Slowly, longingly, the notes of Swing Low Sweet Chariot started to sound through the woods. And somehow, the animals quieted down again, and gathered around the new musician. Freddy and Alma stopped shrieking and climbed down to Newkirk again. The goats behaved themselves again, the dogs left the cats in peace, and the rabbits came back to Carter.

"Okay, listen everyone," Hogan tried again. He looked again in wonder at Garth. And Carter. Could it be true that harmonica music really had some kind of charm for animals?

Okay, that was something to ponder about some other time. First things first. "I´ve got the description of how we´re going to get out of here, but according to the Kommandant it´s a pretty rough path. So I want every kid here paired up with a man who can take care of it on the way. Preferably men who have kids at home themselves, or those who speak and understand some German."

Quite some men came forward to take charge of the orphanage children, and Rosemarie anxiously clutched Langenscheidt´s hand. "I don´t want to go with those foreign soldiers. I want to stay with you," she whispered.

He pressed her hand. "Of course you´re staying with me."

And as Hogan talked on about getting strong men to carry the stretchers with the invalid, she reached out her arms to her Uncle Karl, in a silent request to lift her in his arms to which he readily complied. She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder. "I want to go home," she said in a small voice.

Langenscheidt sighed, and hugged her tight. The breach in the Pied Piper´s magic may be necessary for safety-reasons, but he hoped it would be kept as short as possible.

At that moment he was addressed by the young black sergeant from Hogan´s team: "I didn´t know you had a kid, Sergeant?"

"Oh, she is not my kid," he hurried to explain. "She is... how do you say... I am her second father, for the church."

"Her godfather," Baker helped him out. He smiled at the girl, and Rosemarie stared at him in wonder. And as he walked on towards Carter – who was drinking ferociously – she wondered: "How come he´s so brown in his face? It´s not even summer!"

Langenscheidt smiled. "He´s always brown. He comes from a country far away, where there is so much sun that the people are always brown. There are a few men in the camp who are even a lot browner than he is."

"Really?"

He nodded.

She craned her neck to look about at the many people gathered here. And giggled. "There is one who looks like he´s made of chocolate!"

"He must have a lot of sun in his country then," Langenscheidt agreed.

And as Rosemarie looked about in search of more chocolatey people, Baker reached Pied Piper Carter.

"Boy, playing a Pied Piper really is thirsty work!" was how Carter greeted his mate, followed by another big sip of water. But then he remembered something else: "Did you bring Hasenpfeffer?"

Baker turned around in reply, and showed him the small carrying cage he had wrought out of an old wine-crate and a thick cord.

"Hi Hasenpfeffer," Carter crooned as he wiggled his fingers through a crack. "Are you coming home with me? You know," he continued to Baker, "I think we may as well let him walk along by himself. I´m sure he´d follow; the other rabbits do, too. So if you want to leave that box behind...?"

"Carter? Come on, we´ve got to get going!" Hogan called out to him.

"Just a moment!" he called back as he helped Baker to untie the cage´s rope.

Quickly, Baker lowered it to the ground and opened it.

For a moment, Hasenpfeffer sniffed the air and looked around. But then he took a giant jump out of the box and despite Garth´s Sweet Chariot, he took off in a zigzagrun through the many legs.

"Hasenpfeffer! Stop!" Carter yelled as he dove after him and missed.

"Start playing that bloody harmonica, you fool!" Newkirk snapped behind him. "Your Indian charm will lure him back; it works perfectly on the other animals, so there´s no reason why it shouldn´t work on your dear little Hasy."

Carter scrambled to his feet, grabbed the harmonica and started playing a wild version of Yankee Doodle.

"You´re playing out of tune," Newkirk chided. "Think of charming the little fellow; not of scaring him off."

Carter managed to calm down his music a bit, and as Newkirk pushed him in Hogan´s direction, the children started to gather around him again as well.

Carter looked frantically about to see if his dear Hasenpfeffer came hopping back to him already. But no such luck yet. Instead, from across the bridge came Mr. Lorenz with the last two animals from the zoo on a leash.

A murmur of awe went through the crowd, and some people involuntarily moved somewhat closer together. Especially when the tiger let out a fearsome growl.

"Come on, get going. Down the path here along the ravine." Hogan pushed Carter onto the meager track, but Carter resisted. "But Colonel, Hasenpfeffer has run off!"

"He´ll follow you, don´t worry. I don´t know how you do it, but all the animals do."

Half-heartedly, Carter placed the harmonica at his lips again and started to walk down the narrow path. Soldiers, each with a child at their hand, followed suit. And so did the animals: three rabbits, the goats, the monkeys, the horses, the ostriches, the zebra, the dogs, the chickens, the cats, the cows... It was one happy mixture of soldiers, children and animals following the Pied Piper, and few people could resist a smile as they disappeared into the bare woods.

Only the Pied Piper himself, he had lost his smile...


	12. Chapter 12

"What are you still doing here?" Klink chided when he had parked the last passenger-truck from town by the wayside.

"Making sure you´re coming along," Hogan gave back.

Klink managed to look both flattered and irritated. "I promised I would, didn´t I? Now get going. They will need you up front. I´ll handle things here."

Hogan saluted and gallopped off, crashing through the bushes along the path towards the head of the procession.

xxx

"Karl!"

In a flash Langenscheidt turned around. "Maryse!" That voice he would recognize out of thousands!

And there she was, apparently in good health. For a moment he let go of Rosemarie´s hand, just to be able to pull his Liebste in his arms for the first time in over two months. Scary months, in which a lot of bad, of horrible things could easily have happened to her.

"Thank God you´re okay," he breathed in her hair.

"And you." She nearly choked with emotion, and soothingly he stroked her hair. "I was so scared for you when we heard what that Randall-guy had done to the Kommandant..." She swallowed hard, and looked up to him with fearful misgivings. "Did they...?"

He shook his head. "They just locked us in a barrack for a few days, till Hogan and his men got rid of him. Not very pleasant, but that was all."

Maryse sighed with relief. "Thank God!"

One more squeeze, a light kiss in her hair, and then he let go of her. There were more pressing things at hand; the main thing now was that she was safe. At least as safe as could be under the circumstances.

He took Rosemarie´s hand again – the girl regarded them both with a very pensive expression on her face – and remarked: "I see you´re taking one of the little kids. Isn´t that heavy, carrying them on your back like that?"

She shook her head. "Not really."

"Uncle Karl." Rosemarie pulled at his hand. "We have to go. Otherwise we can´t hear the magical music from the Rattenfänger anymore."

Langenscheidt sighed. "Yes. We´re going. One last thing," he turned back to Maryse and lovingly brushed her cheek. "Are Magda and my uncle coming?"

Maryse nodded towards the trucks. "They´re back there. They´re coming. I´ll be going with them; we'd like to keep an eye on the men who are carrying the infants."

"Good."

She hesitated a moment, but then she leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. "I love you."

A warm smile. "I love you, too." One last squeeze of her hand; then he let Rosemarie pull him down the narrow bush-path to follow the Pied Piper´s lead.

And faintly, far ahead of them, whirled the melancholy notes of Home Sweet Home.

xxx

It cost him quite a few scratches from the thorny black-berry bushes, but Hogan caught up quickly with the head of the procession. And just in time, for only a few hundred yards ahead of them the path split up. The left fork winded _(?? or 'wound'?)_ up the steep hill on their left side, while the right fork led down into the sandy ravine towards the river, many many meters below. And that was the path they had to take.

He walked on ahead to inspect it. It was terribly narrow – hardly two foot wide. And down the edge a sandy, very steep slope went down towards the small river, with no other protuberances save for an occasional rock or bush.

Doubt crept into his heart for a moment. _Do we have to get injured men and young kids and animals down that path?!_

But he shook himself right away. They´d have to; there simply was no other option.

Carter caught up with him and stopped playing his harmonica for a moment. He wiped his brow. "Is that where we´re going?"

Hogan nodded, and Carter gulped audibly. "Boy, it doesn´t look like it´s going to be a picknick, does it?"

He put the harmonica at his lips again, but then he asked anxiously: "Colonel, have you seen Hasenpfeffer? Is he coming along?"

Hogan could do nothing but shrug. "I haven´t seen him. But don´t worry, he´ll come along. Just like all the other animals."

He only wished – for Carter´s sake – that he could be as confident about it as he pretended to be.

Carter nodded miserably.

"Just be careful here, okay?" Hogan added. "I don´t want you or anyone crashing down that ravine!"

xxx

From the direction of Stalag 13 came a very strange procession down the track. Klink squinted his eyes. Did he see that right: were they leading German officers along?! Where on earth had they found those guys?

It wasn´t until they got really close before he recognized Randall and his men in the German officers. And he could hardly suppress a smile. Those rascals... Dressing the men in German uniforms, and setting on the guard-dogs to snap at their coat-tails at every step!

Clearly he was not the only one who saw this last group of evacuees approaching. For Herr Lorenz, the zookeeper, stepped up to him, still with his lion and his tiger on the lead. Klink eyed the wild animals warily, but their behaviour was far from threatening.

"Kommandant Klink," Herr Lorenz ventured, "that Rattenfänger-fellow suggested that we´d use Leon and Sandy here as a special guard for that beast Randall. Would you approve of that, sir?"

Klink gave him a puzzled frown. "What Rattenfänger?"

"One of Hogan´s men; Cawter or Carter I believe his name is. Something like that. He´s dressed in some colourful outfit to lead the children out of town as the Rattenfänger. And he insisted on taking the animals, too. And he thought..."

Klink began to see the light. "He thought it would be a nice touch to have Colonel Randall guarded by a lion and a tiger," he completed. He shook his head. "The things Hogan gets me in to...!"

Herr Lorenz hesitated. "Shall I, sir?"

Klink smiled. After all, a little Schadefreude was only human. "Sure. Why not. As long as they won´t eat him alive?"

"They´ve just had a good meal," Herr Lorenz assured him.

LeBeau, Kinch and Schultz beamed from ear to ear as Herr Lorenz approached them and filled them in on Carter´s idea.

"I´ll _never_ say again that he´s stupid!" LeBeau promised. "Quelle idée, c´est magnifique!"

But Randall whimpered, and anxiously tried to move back. "You can´t mean to have me guarded by wild beasts!" he protested weakly.

"Of course we can," LeBeau assured him happily. "We can have you guarded anyway we like. As long as you behave yourself, they won´t hurt you, will they, Monsieur Lorenz? But if you even _think_ of trying anything...!" A very clear gesture finished his little speech, and Randall gulped.

"You´re inhuman!" he burst out.

"Not as inhuman as you are," Kinch reminded him. "We haven´t hurt one hair on your head – yet. And we won´t as long as you do as you´re told. That´s far more humane treatment than you can claim to have given our Kommandant."

That shut Randall up.

And with the last group of ex-prisoners they turned into the narrow path towards freedom.

Or in Randall´s case: towards a London jail.

xxx

At first Rosemarie had been silent as they walked along the narrow trail. But in the end she asked right out: "Uncle Karl, are you and Fräulein Maryse good friends?"

Langenscheidt nodded. "Very good friends."

"I didn´t even know that you knew her."

There was something accusatory in her voice, and Langenscheidt smiled. "I´ve known her as long as I´ve known you."

Rosemarie looked up in surprise. "Since she was a baby?"

He chuckled. "No, since _you_ were a baby. The first time I met her was around the time you were born."

"Oh." Another silence. Then: "But you like Mummy, too, don´t you?"

Langenscheidt smiled. "Of course I like your Mummy, too. She and I are very good friends, too. But that doesn´t mean I can´t be good friends with other people as well, does it?"

A hesitant ´yes´ was his answer, and he gently squeezed her hand. He knew all too well what she was getting at, the poor little girl. He´d just rather not shatter her dreams right now by telling her that he was practically engaged to "Fräulein Maryse". Especially under the present circumstances. Better take a calm and quiet moment to break that news to her.

xxx

"Vorsicht!"

The German expression for ´be careful´ had quickly been spread among the men taking care of the orphanage children. And not without reason. The path along the sandy cliff was narrow enough as it was, but every here and there, there were patches where the edge had crumbled off, sometimes for several yards, leaving a path of only a foot wide or even narrower to go on.

Everyone was tense. One misstep and you´d tumble down many meters, only to land on the sand- and rocky bank of the wildly rushing little spring-river below, completely out of reach for help. Only the smaller animals: the rabbits and the goats, the chickens and the cats, happily walked along as if they were wandering around in a safe farmyard instead.

Many men had deemed it wise to carry the child in their care on their back or their shoulders – at least for this part of the journey. And those who hadn´t, kept using their newly acquired German vocabulary at every turn: "Vorsicht!"

Still, with so many people and animals on such a hazardous track, accidents were bound to happen. And it didn´t even take long.

For an animal with a natural plumpness like a cow, going on the present path was like walking on a tight rope. Her feet, used to and more equipped for grassy pastures, were put down with as much care as she could muster. But when suddenly the ground gave way under her back paw, there was nothing she could do to stop herself from falling down the steep sandy cliff with a frightful low.

It happened near the end of the line of orphans with soldiers, and everyone cried and staggered back in shock. Corporal Schwarz, walking just behind the unfortunate cow, jumped into the sandwall on his left, nearly smashing the young Thomas in his care against the wall. And Langenscheidt, walking right in front of it, instantly let slide Rosemarie off his back and rolled aside, pulling the girl with him.

For a moment, everyone was frozen in shock. But then they heard a muffled smash. Followed by a long howl of pain echoing up the slopes.

"Good Lord..." Schwarz breathed.

Langenscheidt sat up and turned Rosemarie over. "Are you allright?"

A hiccup and a sob were his only answer, and he pulled the girl soothingly in his arms. "It´s okay. You´re safe."

But the howls kept coming up from the deep. It made the steep valley suddenly very spooky.

Thomas, the boy walking with Schwarz, scrambled to his feet and carefully edged over to the cliff to see what had become of the cow.

"You stay where you are!" Langenscheidt snapped at him, and Schwarz pulled the kid back to safety.

And all the while the howling of an animal in terrible pain came to their ears. It gave everyone the creeps, and some of the younger kids started to cry.

Carefully, Schwarz crept closer to the cliff to peek over the crumbly edge. Young Thomas tried to follow his example, but with a shaky voice Schwarz told him to stay back.

And he saw. Deep down there, on the stony bank of the little spring-river, lay the unfortunate howling animal. Blood was coming from her head, seeping into the wild stream, and her back lay in a very strange angle. All she seemed to be able to move was her head, and she kept howling out her clearly excruciating pain to anyone who would hear. Or rather not hear.

Next to him appeared Langenscheidt´s head. For a moment, the two men watched the injured cow down there, contemplating what to do.

"There is nothing we can do. We cannot get to her," Langenscheidt whispered at last.

Schwarz sighed. "Either way she´s a dead cow. With those injuries..."

Langenscheidt frowned. "She is not dead. Not yet. But maybe it was better if she was dead."

Schwarz cast him a puzzled glance; then he understood the misunderstanding. "I mean she hasn´t got a chance with those injuries. Even if we _could_ get to her, she wouldn´t survive. Looks like she´s got her back broken."

Langenscheidt nodded as yet another agonized howl of pain reached their ears. It was a most horrible sound. Especially knowing there was nothing they could do.

"Perhaps we should kill her then. To end her suffering," he said gravely. And he carefully retreated from the edge to sit up.

Schwarz turned around. "How? We can´t get to her!"

But Langenscheidt got to his feet and asked: "Is there anyone here with a rifle?"

Schwarz sat up with a jerk. "You´re not going to try and shoot her from up here!? From that angle?! That´s madness; you´ll only put her through more pain and agony!"

Langenscheidt gave no reply as he saw a rifle being handed down the line. When it reached him, he checked and unlocked it, and then he carefully stepped closer to the edge of the path to take aim.

"You´re crazy!" Schwarz exclaimed.

And he was not the only one: now that she saw him aiming the deadly rifle at that poor wounded cow in the deep ravine, young Rosemarie jumped to her feet as well and grabbed her uncle by the arm. "You´re not going to _shoot_ that poor cow, are you?" she cried out.

Langenscheidt lowered the rifle, put the safety-catch in place, and directed her back to the safer side of the path. "I´m sorry, Rosemarie, but it´s the best thing I can do for the poor creature," he said softly.

"But you´re not going to kill him, are you?" she protested.

He sighed and knelt down in front of her. And as another piercing howl of pain sounded around them, he explained: "Rosemarie, that poor cow is very badly hurt, and in a lot of pain. You hear her crying, don´t you? And with such bad injuries, she´s going to die for sure. Even if we could get help for her, the veterinary wouldn´t be able to save her life. Now we can either leave her down there, and then she will die of hunger and pain after several weeks of terrible agony. Or we can make sure she goes straight to animal-heaven. Now what do you think would be best for that poor cow?"

Rosemarie burst out in tears. "But I don´t _want_ him to die! That poor cow..."

He sighed and stroked her head. "I don´t like to do it either. But I can´t just leave that poor cow suffering and starving for weeks to come before she finally dies. And she will die. She won´t get better anymore."

He patted her hand, got up, unlocked the rifle again and aimed at the poor howling creature there below.

Apart from Rosemarie´s sobbing and the cow´s howling, everyone around hushed. Only Schwarz dared to open his mouth again: "Are you sure you know what you´re doing?" That lanky, bumbling little sergeant...?

A sharp gunshot echoed back and forth between the slopes on either side, instantly cutting short the howling. (3)

Carefully Schwarz looked over the edge as Langenscheidt lowered the rifle and put the safety-catch back on. The cow lay limp, and a small stream of blood now seeped from somewhere between the eyes.

A murmur of admiration welled up in the sudden silence.

But Langenscheidt simply handed back the rifle, picked up his garrison cap and lifted the still sobbing Rosemarie from the ground.

He swallowed hard. "Come on. We still have to get out of here."

* * *

(3) According to his personnel file, Langenscheidt is an excellent shot. (See: _The Mystery of the Love-Struck Corporal_)

.


	13. Chapter 13

Even up front at the cortege everyone was startled by the agonized howling. Baker paled as it echoed through the sandy ravine. "What's that?"

"The place is haunted," Newkirk joked.

Carter lowered his harmonica for a moment and wiped his brow. "It's a cow in pain. One of them probably fell down the slope." He gulped. "Poor creature."

Hogan handed him a canteen of water, and the Piper drank eagerly. "How much further, Colonel?"

"I don't know." Hogan took out the sketched map he had gotten from Klink. "I'm not sure the distances on this map are correct. I'm looking for a big tree on the left side of the slope."

"I'll help you look," Carter offered, but Hogan thought he'd better concentrate on his harmonica.

"And you better get going. Freddy and Alma are getting nervous," Newkirk said. He cast a look over his shoulder, but the ravine curved a little, so he couldn't see what had happened back there where the spooky howling came from.

Carter did as he was told, and stumbling over the rabbits he walked on. His music was almost drowned out by the howling.

But suddenly the unexpected report of a rifle echoed back and forth, freezing the entire line.

And then there was silence.

A few children started crying, instantly hushed by their caretakers.

"What the heck..." Hogan began in worried annoyance, but then he realized the howling had stopped. "They must have shot that injured beast." A sigh. "Well, we'd better move on. I see a big tree ahead of us, on top of the slope. That might be ours."

It was indeed. When they rounded another slight curve in the ravine, everyone could clearly see the dark hole in the slope: the entrance to an abandoned mine. A sign was set up in front of it, and when they came closer, anyone who was able to read German could make out what it said:

**Keep Out!  
Danger of Collapse!**

"Oh great," Hogan muttered. "Just what we need."

"Maybe Klink put it up himself, sir. To keep people away from his secret passage," Newkirk suggested.

"Yeah, maybe." Hogan peered inside. Near the entrance lay some rocks as big as a man's head – proof of a collapse? Further down there was nothing but stuffy darkness, though at least at the first ten yards the mine-gallery seemed to be adequately propped. How it would be further on, he could only guess.

"Carter," he instructed the Pied Piper, "as long as you're in there, play something gentle. A lullaby or something like that. And pass on the word that only whispering is allowed while in the mine. We don't want anyone getting buried in there."

That said, he carefully entered the mine with the Pied Piper on his heels. Carter had changed his tune to a rather monotonous drab, in which it was hard to recognize any melody at all. But the animals still loved it, and one by one they followed their tamer into the dark opening.

It was dark. Really dark. Hogan happened to have brought a flashlight, but Klink had forgotten to mention the mine before he went to town to organize things there, so only a handful of people had brought a proper lightsource. The others used cigarette lighters and matches, and one could only hope that they would not wear out before they would have reached the exit on the other side.

'Just go straight ahead,' said Hogan's instructions. At least the path was pretty clear, though there were definite signs of earlier collapses here and there.

Nervously, Hogan peered around. The shadows made by so many flickering lightsources were monstrous. Not that they bothered him of course; it was just that this dusty mine brought back some very frightening memories. (4)

And then he had to stop. The gallery split in two: one tunnel went on slightly to the left, and the other slightly to the right.

He cursed under his breath and let his light wander over the two tunnels. He knew enough of old mines to know that one wrong turn could get you lost – forever. And he had absolutely no wish to play it by chance this time; especially not with some three thousand men, women and children in tow. Men, women and children for whom _he_ bore the responsibility to get them out of this hell safely. And besides, within a few hours the Germans would start bombing the area. And what would happen to this little mine then?!

"Baker," he quietly called one of his men who was walking up front with a kid.

"Yes Colonel?"

"You check out the tunnel to the right. Come back if there are any more bifurcations, or if it turns. And be back here in two minutes."

"Right, Colonel." Baker left his kid in Newkirk's care and disappeared with his cigarette lighter held high, and Hogan took the left gallery.

"Wait here," he told Carter. "But keep playing."

"Just do me a favour and play another tune," Newkirk begged. "This one is giving me a bloody headache!"

Carter lowered his harmonica and gave his friend a surprised look by the scanty light of Newkirk's cigarette lighter. "It's an Indian lullaby. My Mum used to sing it to me when I was a kid."

Newkirk rolled his eyes. "I'm surprised you didn't grow up with a chronic headache."

"No, I hardly ever have headaches. Actually, I think people get headaches from worrying too much. Worrying about things they can't change anyhow. Or things that are never going to happen. You know, my uncle Bob was like that. He could..."

But Newkirk interrupted him. "Didn't Colonel Hogan tell you to keep playing?"

"Oh! Yes, that's right." He thought for a moment, and as he brought the harmonica to his lips again and quietly blew the first few bars into it, all the Americans in the crowd pricked their ears. And smiled. In these dark and claustrophobic surroundings, Carter could hardly have picked a more appropriate song. And quietly, some of the men hummed the words along: _"This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..."_

They hadn't even gotten through the first stanza before Baker joined them again. "It must be the other way," he told Newkirk. "This tunnel makes a sharp turn to the right."

A nod from Newkirk. "Let's hope the Colonel has more luck then."

He had barely uttered the words when both he and Baker and Carter heard a soft rumbling coming from the tunnel from where they'd expect Hogan to emerge any moment now. A soft rumbling, and a faint cry...

"Blimey! The Colonel!" The three of them immediately rushed off into the tunnel, causing their cigarette lighters to extinguish instantly, leaving them with only the vague, disappearing light of those they left behind.

"Carter, go back and keep playing that song of yours. We don't need three thousand men and kids to go in a panic."

A shaking Carter did as he was told and started on a new, trembling stanza of The Little Light. Meanwhile, Baker got his cigarette lighter burning again, and together Newkirk and he stealthily moved on.

"Colonel?" Newkirk called under his breath. "Colonel Hogan, are you allright?"

A groan not far ahead of them was his reply, and the two men hurried towards the sound.

And there he was: covered in sand and grit, but apparently pretty much unscathed. Right next to him lay a pile of fresh rubble, and dust was still coming down from the ceiling, covering all three of them with a greyish layer.

Quickly, Newkirk and Baker helped Hogan to his feet and dusted him off.

"I tried to avoid a puddle, but I must have hit that post," Hogan muttered with relief as he shook the dust out of his hair. "And I dropped the flashlight. Where is it?"

Baker peered around and saw it lying by the wall. Broken. "Sorry, Colonel, that light won't be of much use anymore."

"Oh well. Then we'll have to find our way by cigarette lighter instead." He pricked his ears. "And what's that? Has Carter gotten the men to sing!?"

Newkirk grinned. "Wait till you hear what they're singing, sir!"

They walked back, and a smile spread over Hogan's face as he could begin to make out the melody and the lyrics. Carter was really one of the best men he'd ever worked with, he realized. To choose this song of hope and light at a moment when everything around the people was dark...

Gently he put his hand on Carter's shoulder. "This is the way to go, Pied Piper. But be careful; it's not so steady here."

"Colonel, you're bleeding!" Carter cried out.

Hogan brushed over his temple, and his fingers came indeed away with a little blood. "It's just a scratch. Nothing to worry about. Now get going; the sooner we're out of here, the better."

With a last worried glance at his commanding officer, Carter brought the harmonica back to his lips and continued his song. And so, now guided by Baker's lighter, Hogan and the Piper carefully sought their way through the dark inside of the hills.

xxx

Further down the line they had problems of a different kind. It proved to be tricky to carry a man on a stretcher when you couldn't always stand up straight yourself. The men did the best they could, but still they could not prevent especially some of the weaker patients from occasionally rolling off their stretcher.

Another problem were the animals. Some of them simply followed the flock and didn't particularly care what route they took. But others refused to go into a dark hole with no visible exit. One of the horses bolted and ran off, nearly running over a child and a young French private, who barely got off with a fright.

The cows, too, kept lowing and refused to go even near the black hole. The few farmers and some of the townspeople tried to push them from behind, but with very little success. And by the time Klink and the tied prisoners with their guards came up to the mine entrance, they were completely exhausted.

Klink looked at the pigheaded creatures. "Perhaps we ought to leave them behind," he reflected sadly. "It's a pity, so close to safety, but forcing those resisting animals down the tunnel could easily endanger everyone in there."

"Yeah. I don't think any tunnel could hold out against the vibration caused by a herd of angry cows," Kinch agreed with a sigh.

So with a last pleading glance at their cattle, the farmers followed their townsmen inside by the shine of Klink's flashlight.

xxx

By the time Klink with the rear of the line entered the mine, the first couple of hundred refugees had already emerged from the other side.

Hogan had started to walk faster and faster when he finally spotted a spark of daylight ahead. "Phew!" he blew out as he stepped out in the beginning dusk, silently greeting the open sky above him.

Carter stepped up behind him and lowered is harmonica with a huge grin. "We made it, Colonel!"

Hogan looked back at his grinning sergeant. "Not yet, Carter. But I think the worst part is over, yes." As more and more people poured out of the mine behind him, he glanced once more at the sketch Klink had given him, and set off along the winding valley-trail to the north.

The Pied Piper followed him faithfully, as did men, women, children and animals. Yes, the charm still worked.

xxx

Meanwhile back in the tunnel, young Rosemarie suddenly stopped, causing Langenscheidt to bump into her in the semi-darkness of the tunnel.

"We're nearly there; I saw sunlight!" the girl happily announced. "Uncle Karl, when we come out of the mountain, are we in the happy land in peace on the other side then?"

"I hope so, sweetie. But it might be a little further still," he replied. "Come on, walk on; we're holding up the line."

Rosemarie skipped on until she caught up with the people in front of them again. "Uncle Karl," she started pensively as she laid her hand in his again, "what does it mean: a land in peace?"

Langenscheidt had a bitter smile. "Peace means that killing people isn't a good deed anymore."

Rosemarie mulled that over. "I never killed anyone. And neither did Mummy. So we can go and live in the land of peace then, can't we?" A pause. "Is it like heaven? Where only the good people go?"

A chuckle from her companion. "Not quite. But at least in the land of peace the bad guys get punished for what they've done."

Silence.

Then: "Uncle Karl?"

"Yes?"

"It's the soldiers who kill people, right?"

Karl sighed. "Yes. In wartime, that's their job."

"Did... did _you_ ever kill someone?"

Langenscheidt remained silent; to be honest, he'd rather not answer that question.

But Rosemarie persisted: "Did you? After all, you're a soldier, too."

He closed his eyes as painful memories flooded him. "Yes. Yes, I did, Rosemarie. Though I've always tried the utmost to only kill the bad guys. Those whose only wish was to harm innocent people."

The girl stared at him in grave wonder. And worry. "Will they let you enter the land of peace on the other side then?"

He heard the worry in her voice, and gave her a hesitant smile. "Oh, they'll let me in allright. For by killing the bad guys, I actually helped _them_. But they might still decide that I need to be punished for what I did."

"Will they put you in prison then?"

Langenscheidt shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."

"They won't shoot you, will they?!"

He squeezed her hand. "I wouldn't worry about _that_ if I were you. From what I know about the people there, I think it highly unlikely that they'd simply shoot me. But to go to prison for a while... Well, of course I'd rather not, but in a way I'd deserve it, Rosemarie. After all, who am I to decide that those men could no longer live?"

She made no reply, as they finally neared the exit of the tunnel. And – as everyone else – Langenscheidt heaved a sigh of relief as he was greeted by the quickly fading daylight.

"Are we there now?" the girl asked eagerly, looking around at the bare bushes around them.

"Not yet, I think." Langenscheidt squeezed her hand once more. "We'll just follow the others and that way we'll get there, I'm sure. Soon. And I hear the Pied Piper again, too. Do you?"

Rosemarie nodded. "I told you he would take us there!"

Suddenly a distant sonorous rumbling caught his attention. And more people heard it. And looked up at the sky, their eyes worriedly searching the darkening void for the black shapes of planes.

"There!" someone cried, pointing towards the northeastern horizon.

And there they were: three German bombers, slowly making their way to their dear unprotected but fortunately empty little town of Hamelburg.

People suddenly hurried along. This was earlier than expected; one misplaced bomb and they'd all be wiped out... Better get as far away as possible!

But what was that?! More rumbling, this time from the west, and it was approaching fast!

"They're Allied fighters!" Schwarz cried out. "They've come to take out those bombers!"

"I only hope they know what they're doing," Langenscheidt muttered through clenched teeth as he hurried Rosemarie along, watching the fighters moving in. "If this is going to be a fullblown air-fight, there's no knowing where those planes will come down."

Yet apparently that was exactly what the fighters had in mind. They quickly separated the three German planes, and then set out to shoot them down. The air was filled with the screeching of plane-engines and the racketing of the board-guns. Children screamed in fear and held their hands over their ears. Langenscheidt lifted up the trembling Rosemarie, and felt how the little girl practically tried to crawl inside him for fear.

Suddenly one of the bombers exploded in fire, and began to tumble out of the sky. Right in their direction...

The last thing Karl Langenscheidt saw were two men in parachutes, gently floating down to earth in the midst of all the shooting. It reminded him of his own training in the Luftwaffe; the only thing he had actually enjoyed from his training. Then he fell down on the ground, protecting Rosemarie with his body – for all it was worth.

This was the end. He knew it; there was no escaping a crashing plane. And in the blink of an eye he saw his entire life flash by in his mind: his home in Viersen, his mother and sisters, his friend Peter, school, the factory, Katinka, Düsseldorf, the army, the Berlin theaters, the mass execution in the mountains, uncle Frank, Hamelburg, Magda, Rosemarie, Maryse, Helga, Paris, Stalag 13, Colonel Hogan...

An enormous crash that shook the ground beneath him interrupted the quick film of his life. Immediately he realized that the plane had crashed somewhere else – at least not on top of _him_.

He raised his head to assess the situation. It was pretty much dark by now; only in the air and behind the hills the sky was lit up by the burning light of fires. The plane must have come down on the other side of the hill then.

It was at that moment that it happened: a rumbling inside the hill, and suddenly the people coming out of the mine were enveloped in huge clouds of dust. Others followed running and coughing. The mine had collapsed under the travelling impact of the crashed bomber!

And as the air-fight in the sky above them continued, still more people came stumbling out of the dust clouds.

The question was now: had everyone gotten out in time?

* * *

(4) See Theater of War, Act 1


End file.
